Riker's Story: Mirror Cracked!
by Steve2
Summary: Star Trek universe has had one spatial anomaly after another. This is one of those stories. Only, this spatial anomaly has far-reaching consequences, more than a show's producer would realize.
1. Chapter 1

**Riker's Story: Mirror Cracked!**

By Steve2

 **Summary** : Star Trek universe has had one spatial anomaly after another. This is one of those stories. Only, this spatial anomaly has far-reaching consequences, more than a show's producer would realize.

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own the Star Trek series or Married with Children series. This is simply a story for fun. No profits are being made. Enjoy the humor.

 **Author's note** : This is the second story of my Star Trek series I wrote decades ago. I thought this would be fun to do, so I did it. It is also the last story I did at that time. This story is complete. I am still editing as I post this, and it will take a little longer to edit and post. Since I am editing the story, I can always edit to improve and change. If anyone reading decides they would like to comment and suggest something, I will give it consideration. Especially if it is funny.

 **Chapter 1: Change Is Good for the soul— Most of the Time**

"Ooooohh, Will, you're the dreamiest," said a soft, soothing voice into Commander William Riker's ear, just above the little white flaky crap humans never seems to get out of an ear, no matter how hard you scrub it out in the shower.

Commander Riker smiled and opened his eyes. The sun was setting low on the horizon of Klendi4, an M-class moon populated by scientists, engineers, farmers. And most important of all, the Risa Expansion Colony #1. He was lying face down on a table while triplet redheads Mary, Cheri and Connie rubbed his back and legs, and blonde twins Bonnie and Susan gave him a manicure and pedicure. Aaahhhhh, this was the life, he thought.

Risa was a wonderful world just over 88 light years from Earth. Klendi4 was in the same system as Risa, however it did not classify as a planet. It was a moon roughly twice the size of Earth's in orbit around a gaseous giant like Jupiter. It was originally thought uninhabitable, but when later exploration satellites were sent to investigate its surface and minerals for possible strip mining operations, it was found to have an oxygen atmosphere and a pleasant temperature. An investigation of the group in charge of analyzing the original data who were recently found on the board of directors of Klendi-4's tourism board found no possible wrong doings or cover-up conspiracies in the analyzing of the data from previous probes, and concluded the mistake was simply a human error.

Once it was discovered that new ground was found for expansion, especially in the same system as Risa, it seemed as if everyone wanted a piece of the action. Feeling that it could negatively impact tourism bookings, the board of directors for Risa decided on the only reasonable course of action: they incorporated the colony and started taxing it. Soon, most of the non-aligned companies folded, leaving only government-aligned companies and one lone independent chain making money. And although taxes bit into it more so than the tax-subsidized aligned companies, it seemed as if people were drawn to the old-age Earth institution of Massage Parlors and it flourished with a 10% growth per year for the past 20 years. Of course, it really helped when they sponsored an Interstellar Comedy Contest and plugged their resorts/health benefits.

Commander Riker turned over and Mary and Cheri got to work massaging his arms and legs while Connie expertly trimmed his beard.

"Oh, Will," said Mary as she rubbed and rubbed his arms, moving to his hairy chest. "I just love running my hands through your rough chest," she smarmed.

"Do you really own a starship?" asked Connie. Pluck. Pluck. Clip, clip, snip. "Now, now, girls," he responded. "I don't like talking finances."

"Titter, titter," they tittered at his avoidance of the question. Snip, snip, clip, clip.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.

Susan, finished with cleaning the official Starfleet lint from the official Starfleet socks off Riker's fleet feet, got up and answered the door.

"'Scuze, me, toots," a miniature man said, pushing his way past Susan and her startled expression on a very cute and tanned face. She turned around as he made his way towards Riker, her hands on her slender hips and the tight, yet thoughtfully skimpy massage outfit she was wearing. She did not like rude people, especially ones who hounded paying clients.

"Hey, buddy. Yeah, you on the table being mobbed by the massage parlor chicks. Your name Commander Riker of the Starship Enterprise?" he asked in an annoying way a bill collector does.

Susan walked over to a panel on the wall, slid it back and pulled out a baseball bat, swinging it once to get back in practice of knocking some sense into people. It was just like riding a bicycle, she thought as she swung once, then twice, loosening up the muscles in the shoulders and triceps.

Riker got to a sitting position, keeping a towel around his waist so he wouldn't smirch the virtue of the masseuses. "What can I do for you, Mr..." he trailed off.

"Ah. Good. You are Commander Riker. Pleasure to meet you. My name is Nic Meanibleed, and I have a proposition for you."

Nic Meanibleed was a short man of just over one meter. He was in decent shape and wore a simple assembly of plaid patches sewn together to make an unusual kilt. He wore the traditional knee-high socks, black shoes of some unknown design that seemed to have a belt buckle attached them on the shoe top, a red cap with a fluffy white ball on top on his head, and a white and green shirt and jacket. It was hard to determine where the green started and the white ended. It was not so much the style of the clothes that caused this problem but that it appeared he hadn't washed his clothes in some time and the stains and soil marks obliterated a natural distinction between coat and shirt.

In addition to the odd clothes, Nic wore a hard expression, as if his face had weathered a thousand sunsets on a beach without benefit of any sunscreen. He was roughly 40 standard cycles old, had bright red hair and cool sideburns that came down to his chin which Riker was not envious of since he already had a beard. A real beard. Trimmed and all.

Nic appeared to weigh approximately 120 kilograms, which some might think was not very much weight, until you realize that 120 kilograms was approximately 265 pounds. On a just-over 1-meter tall individual. His hair complemented hazel green eyes, a large square nose and loud lipstick-less red lips over a chin with a little squiggly thingy in it.

All this was about to change as Susan tiptoed up behind him with a poised baseball bat.

Will considered letting Susan do her duty as a masseuse-bouncer, but then decided that anyone not aiming a weapon at him wasn't totally bad. "No Susan," he said. "I'm sure that Nic will get to the point of why he came here."

Susan was inclined to disagree and say that a good pounding would help his memory even faster, but since he was the paying boss, she did as instructed and put the bat down before heading back to her foot duty. When the Commander wasn't looking, though, she smacked Nic on the back of his head lightly with the cup of her hand. Surprisingly, that happened four more times, much to Nic's annoyance, and Will's secret glee since he did pay attention even when he wasn't paying attention.

Nic glowered at an innocent-looking Susan and said to Riker, "Let me come right to the point, sir. I recently came into an inheritance from my dear departed grandfather, Horace Meanibleed the third. Or was it the fourth. I suppose it could have been the fifth. No, wait. He had a fifth on him when he died on the fourth. Whatever. Anyway, this inheritance included the last 10 remaining film theaters on Earth which I will be relocating here to Klendi4 as this is the happening vacation spot in the Federation. However, most of the film stock I have is a bit, shall we say, dated."

"Define 'dated'," Riker said absently as Connie brushed away the remains of his cut beard bristles.

"Mid-21st century is about as new as it gets. But I also have some great show scripts that are even earlier! So, here's my idea. I'd like for you to star in a movie to bring back the movie genre. What better candidate is there? You're the dashing hero of the Enterprise. The savior of the Federation time and time again. The heartthrob of the Alpha Quadrant. And best yet, you're not bald, like the other guy on the ship. I forget. You know, whatsisname."

"Captain Picard?"

"Yeah. That's him. Anyway, I have this great script for an X-rated film noire piece. Sure, there'll be nudity and plenty of action sequences where your stand-ins could do all the work, but it'll have class and lots of chicks. Why, the likes of something like this hasn't been done in centuries. So whaddaya say, sport. You in? I can make it all worth your while, just as soon as I clear operating profits... er... expenses from the theaters first—then I can get you a hefty 5% of the net."

Riker gave it some serious thought, giving each side of his brain equal consideration. He tilted his head to the left. Sure, he would be able to participate in an event that he liked. He tilted his head to the right. But would he really enjoy acting? Besides, if he were to take up acting, when would he have time to scour the universe for all the other hot spots? He tilted his head back to the left. But the allure of being paid to do something... He quickly tilted back to the right. Think of the great travel book you'll be able to write.

"Forget it," he declined.

Nic's face fell several centimeters but he quickly regained his equilibrium. "But... but... but, why?" he stammered.

"I have more important duties than acting. I have to go make the Universe a safer place for the babes."

"Ooooohh, Will!" swooned Cheri, batting her eyelashes and almost putting out Connie's eye since the fake lashes were two meters way too long.

He moved behind a dressing curtain to get back in uniform. His entourage followed, helping him get dressed.

"Oh Will," said Connie, "this is so hard and rigid!"

Nic's ears perked up like a dog after his favorite scent. Perhaps he could get some ideas for a script from listening in. Or maybe some good blackmail.

"Yes, well, communication badges must be made of stern stuff in case we drop them on the floor," replied Riker.

Nic's ears sagged.

Giggle-giggle.

"Oh Will, you're not getting it up," came a pouty voice from a set of luscious red lips.

Nic's ears shot up yet again.

"Not to worry, ladies. I'll just put those shorts in my dirty laundry bag."

Down the ears went.

Giggle-giggle.

"My, my, Will," said Cheri. "It's so big. Growlf."

Nic's ears didn't go anywhere as he already sensed the outcome.

"Yes. I guess that's true. I did go through more clothes than I intended on this trip. At least the bag can hold all of the laundry."

Giggle-giggle.

"Now, don't make a hasty decision, sir," Nic pleaded over a soft musical score.

Riker wondered at its source, but not very hard as he was surrounded by five scantily clad women.

"You see," Nic went on over the music, "unlike most pictures this one would actually have a storyline. I see a family. A boy, a girl. Some parents would be good. Yeah, that's it. And a yak. No. Maybe a camel. No, that's not it. Anyway, some sort of pet. And neighbors. And best yet, lots of tension as they all hate or despise each other. They can taunt and swipe stuff from the neighbors. Um... how about a working title of, say, Married and Stuck with Annoying Kids and Pushy Neighbors, or something like that. You would be the handsome neighbor. You'll be the heartthrob of your wife and all the neighborhood women. And best yet, you'll be a househusband to all these housewives. What do you say? I'll even go up to 7% of the net. You can't get any more honest or giving than that, I tell you!" Nic was smiling innocently, arching his red eyebrows with the pitch.

Riker again wondered at the music source. Damn those portable music systems anyway. 'Sure wish I had one, though,' he mused. He knew he'd get one when he became a captain. But just when was Picard going to accept a desk job or simply retire?

"Breep-breep-breep-ppphhhlltzzz," Riker's nipple comm sputtered.

"Riker here," he said, punching the little hard doohickey.

"This is the Enterprise operator patching a call through from a Captain Picard. Will you accept the charges?"

Darn those budget cuts, Will thought sourly. "Certainly," he replied.

"Ah. Number One. The Enterprise is in orbit on a 2-hour meter, so hurry it up and beam aboard." A little more quietly, he mumbled, "These bloody meters are playing havoc with Federation shipping these days. If there wasn't a stiff penalty for blowing them away like an irate turbo lift…"

"For an additional minute, please deposit a 25-credit slip," came a metallic voice of the automatic operator.

Riker discommed before he had to pay any penalties. Darn those budget cuts anyway, he thought.

"Ladies," Commander Riker started, "it has been a pleasure as always. Please charge my account the appropriate fees and add a 25% tip for yourselves." Cheri handed him his overstuffed dirty laundry bag.

"Listen, sport, we can work this out," Nic pleaded. "Don't make any hasty decisions. Take my card and give me a call if you change your mind." Nic held out his hand, flipping a white card into it.

Riker took it and read the inscription:

Reality Pictures Corp. Inc. /home

Nic Meanibleed

Big Cheese in Charge (BCiC)

And Don't You Forget It

"I'll consider the offer," Riker said to Nic as he slid the card into his dirty laundry bag. And under his breath added "...but not very seriously." He stood tall, pushed the hard nipple comm, and said, "Riker to Enterprise! One to beam up!"

Within moments, Commander Riker began fading in little molecule balls and a nifty sound effect while Nic and the babes waved.

"Bye-bye, Will!" Connie, Mary, Cheri, Bonnie and Susan said, waving and giving Riker a good preview of what he would see if he paid for the mud massage on his next trip in.

"Enjoy your trip," Nic waved, laughing at the inside joke. "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, snort. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, snort. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, snort. Cough, cough."

Now that Commander Riker was gone, Bonnie said, "Am I ever glad that's over with. I don't know how much more I could've pumped up Will's ego without bursting out laughing."

"No kidding," Mary agreed. "That last round behind the clothing curtain I almost lost it. Heh-heh, did you notice when I was pushing my… you still here, sport-o?"

Nic responded to the indirect question of him leaving by presenting his card to the assembled babes. "Have you chicks ever considered a career in acting?" he asked in a tone that reminded Mary of a shark closing in on a kill.

She declined to take the card. As did the others.

"Are you kidding," Cheri responded tartly. "What do you think that job with Will was all about? If I hadn't majored in acting while at college, I never would have gotten as many stories to sell to the Cosmic Inquirer rag."

"That's still in business?" Nic's eyes opened a bit.

"Heck yeah it's still operating in the 24th century. I'll have you know it's even got employee benefits now, so mind your lip, pal."

"Peace. Peace. I know when to leave," Nic said, knowing when to leave, which was when he encountered intelligent females who could figure out how much of a leech he really was and call the cops. Again.

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

Will wondered at Nic's sudden outburst and coughing fit as he dematerialized from the House Of Massage And Then Some, but quickly put it out of mind when he rematerialized on another ship. The first thing he noticed was that he appeared on a soiled transporter pad wearing a soiled semi-Starfleet uniform, or something like a uniform.

He noticed that his uniform had the traditional black pants, but instead of boots, he wore black loafers with some sort of Wing contraption on top instead of the usual Velcro. There were also plastic-looking strings going through six holes on each side of the tongue. Additionally, he wore white socks which looked as if they hadn't been washed in nearly two years, which coincidentally matched the color of his shirt. Instead of the red Starfleet top, he was wearing a button-up, somewhat gray shirt (which had been white once) that had been rolled up at the sleeves. The only thing that seemed to be Starfleet-like was the fact he was wearing a nipple comm and his collar still held his rank insignia, although instead of metal insignia emblems, they seemed to have been drawn on with a marker. The one piece of clothing he had a problem with was the tie. He didn't really have any idea what the tie signified as he had never seen one before, or why it was in the form of a noose around his neck. But he didn't like it one bit! The second thing he noticed were two women at the transporter controls trying to put out a fire. Or a big smoky mess which usually indicated a fire.

"Kelly! I said not to push that button. Now look what you've done!" Riker saw a mound of red hair yelling at a blond with a fire extinguisher.

"Sorry, mom," replied the smaller blonde, stopping her work to gawk at Riker, her mouth forming an "O"

The redhead stopped her work as well, turned around and looked up, did a double take, smiled and then said

"Well, hello there, big boy. Say, what did you do with Al? Not that I mind, mind you, ha-ha."

She wiggled her way over to Riker, her Starfleet uniform a shambled mess. She wore the regulation gold and black of engineering, but the pants ended at her bare ankles and she was wearing high-heels. Also, she seemed to be wearing a gold satin jacket over her gold and black uniform, and while the regs had everyone wearing semi-form fitting uniforms these days, hers was skin-tight, which did nothing to help her curly red hair draped over her shoulders, matching her equally red lipstick.

Since when did Starfleet allow lipstick? Hmmm, he'd have to talk to someone about that little oversight soon.

Of course, on her… Riker just didn't know what to think.

Riker looks confused, muttering, "Man, I wish I had a 'sub-type: confusion' musical sonata now."


	2. Chapter 2: Confusion Everywhere

**Riker's Story: Mirror Cracked!**

By Steve2

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own the Star Trek series or Married with Children series. This is simply a story for fun. No profits are being made. Enjoy the humor.

 **Chapter 2: Confusion Everywhere - Not That It Mattered**

 _ **A few minutes earlier:**_

Chief O'Brien was on his hands and knees, intently studying the transporter pad, looking for a spot to polish. "...grumble... didn't spend all these bloody years in Star-bloody-fleet to end up as a bloody janitor ...grumble... ought ta just up an' quit ...serves the bloody officers right if they had t'do their own cleanin' for a bit..." he muttered, searching for that ever-elusive spot. A spot that might just disappear if O'Brien ever got around to cleaning his contacts.

Breeprztkklll. "Riker to Enterprise! One to beam up," said the commanding voice of Commander Riker.

Chief O'Brien quickly stashed the cleaning rag into a little hole designed for it as it would be uncharacteristic of him to be seen with a cleaning rag by an officer who would assume he did not have enough to do and assign him more work to do, like cleaning their quarters just like Commander Burns of the Char...no, never mind that little errant thought, he thought, shoving it back down a dark recess of his mind.

"One to beam up, aye," he replied.

Chief O'Brien then smacked himself on the forehead, pushed a communications button and said, "One to beam up, aye." He punched a couple other buttons and zipped his hands over the thingamajig which latched onto Commander Riker's signal and energized him to the transporter pads. Within moments his sensors indicated that Commander Riker was back onboard the Enterprise standing on the pad in Transporter Room 3.

The only problem was that he was not on the transporter pad. Or on the Enterprise.

Instead, a man roughly the same height as Commander Riker was standing on the pad. A man who was wearing the same uniform as Commander Riker. At first glance, Chief O'Brien couldn't believe his eyes. He blinked, saw the same scene and figured he had a problem with his contacts. He slapped the back of his head, caught the two contacts as they flew out and quickly put on his regulation horn-rimmed glasses and took another look.

It was the same man. Unlike Commander Riker, however, this person did not have a beard or a complete head of hair. Or, if he had to admit it to himself, the poise and air of a commanding officer.

Instead, this unidentified man had a large nose under two glazed eyes which seemed to stir with _some sort_ of intelligence… maybe. Unlike Riker, he also had what seemed like an overbite and the posture of someone who had seen his share of trouble. He was a beaten man. Chief O'Brien noticed the ring on his finger and concluded the man was also married.

He was also not in shape. Flab hung over a device O'Brien hadn't seen in years—a belt. He wasn't sure how the belt remained on the Starfleet uniform, but there it was. As the belt seemed a little out of place, Chief O'Brien took a harder look at the man's uniform. He noticed that the uniform the man was wearing was not technically Starfleet issue. The shoes were standard Starfleet issue. But that was about it. Like Riker's garb, it was red and black. He wore black trousers and black shoes and a red top with black underarm pits, the better to hide the sweat stains. But O'Brien was unsure if the black underarm pits were created intentionally or a natural result in his not cleaning the uniform. Phhheeeewwww.

As for the rest, the uniform looked as if it hadn't been washed in months, was rumpled on top of spit-smoothed, and looked like he had slept in it. His uniform was a two-piece job, which explained why he needed a belt. His shirt was partially out of the belt confines and the only reason the rest of the shirt hadn't gotten loose was the man had wedged his hand down his pants, past the belt to probably keep the shirt in place.

The man's expression, first bored… with a hand stuck down his pants suddenly turned into amazement… with a hand stuck down his pants. He pulled the hand out and looked around in wonder.

"Did Peg finally get around to cleaning the Transporter Room," he muttered, mainly of himself while looking around literally smelling the area searching for dirt and grease.

The man noticed O'Brien and asked. "Who the hell are you and where the hell is my wife?"

"Your wife... er... sir?"

"Yeah, buddy. My wife. The tall red-head who probably gave you this job saying it would lead to bigger and better things all the while not telling you that your salary was tied to my already cash-depleted wallet. "

By some morbid curiosity factor, O'Brien noticed that the man's overbite beckoned for a closer look although it had nothing to do with how white the teeth were. Quite the opposite actually.

"I'd better get you to sick-bay and have those teeth looked at, sir. Who knows how long you'll be able to keep them if they stay green. They don't... er... hurt, do they?"

Breeppzzzslketch.

"Picard to Mr. O'Brien. Is Commander Riker aboard yet? Time is money, after all."

Silence.

A moment later, "...bloody meters. Mr. Worf, belay that music if you please and would someone kindly turn off my nipple comm."

Whack!

"Thank you, Mr. Data," Captain Picard said through a world of hurt. "But I meant electronically turn it..." the line went dead.

"O'Brien to Captain Picard."

Silence.

"O'Brien to Lt. Worf."

"Worf here, chief. What can I do for you today?"

"Is the captain all right?"

"We're in the process of getting him a new communicator as Mr. Data broke his old one. Hold on, I'll give him a backup receiver. Sir? Chief O'Brien is on line four. No, sir. That's line five, for Engineering. No, sir, that's line eight. It goes to 10-Forward. I know that, sir, but Chief O'Brien is still on line four. Okay, sir. I'll call Guinan for you and order a whiskey."

"Chief?" came a voice sounding light years away on a tin line. "Is Riker... kkkkksssssshhhhhh...? If not, I'll... ssssshhhhkkkkkkkk... hide."

"Sir. I thought I beamed up Commander Riker. However, the person I beamed up is not Commander Riker even though the transporter log and bio filters indicate that he is."

"Chief... hhhhhssssssskkkkkkkk... again? Commander Ri... kkkkksssssshhhhhh."

The comm died.

"Chief!" boomed the voice of Captain Picard over the ship's intercom. "I'll be right down."

"You got anything to eat around here?" the strange commander inquired once O'Brien's attention was back on him.

Several minutes later Transporter Room #3's doors whooshed open and Lt. Worf stormed in. He stopped to stare at what Chief O'Brien was engrossed with staring at, namely, the unidentified man with green teeth who was happily eating a sandwich. He was sitting on the steps of the transporter pad.

"And you see, sir," O'Brien said. "That with proper brushing with this fine galactic toothpaste and a regular flossing of at least once a day you'll be able to get that green goo off your teeth in no time. I'd give it six... maybe seven months tops. And if it doesn't come off, galactic toothpaste has a money back guarantee. At least that's what my dentist says."

"Chief," started Lt. Worf, a scowl forming. "Who's this?"

The man stood up and stuck out his chest. He was nearly as tall as Lt. Worf and while he had a receding hairline, he didn't have as much hair in the back which Worf silently noticed and tallied another point of Klingon superiority on his tally sheet. "Name's Al Bundy. Commander Al Bundy of the Dodge 2610X Dart. Who are you and where the hell am I?"

"I'm Lt. Worf and you're on the Federation Starship Enterprise."

"Where's the captain?" asked Chief O'Brien.

"I had to drop him off in sickbay to get the remaining communicator fragments out of his chest. I was supposed to get Commander Riker and bring him there. Now it seems I'm stuck with a green-toothed Commander Bundy. No disrespect, sir."

"Oh. None taken. You know, I've met Klingons before. I've seen Andorians and even a few damn Vulcans in my day. But I have never met anyone who kept a cleaner transporter room than Mr. O'Brien here. And I've never heard of this Federation."

"Oh no," O'Brien muttered. "Are you going to monolog?"

"Damn straight I am!" Commander Bundy returned.

"Figures. All you commanders seem to like doing that," O'Brien muttered, wondering why those damn commanders seemed to enjoy one monolog after another.

To Worf, Commander Bundy said, "At first, I thought I must have traveled via an interdimensional spatial anomaly which ripped a hole in the fabric of space and allowed myself and your Commander Riker to exchange places because let's face it, this sure as hell isn't the transporter room of the Dodge 2610X. And we seem to encounter those damn spatial anomalies all the time. But then I meet you. A Klingon. And let's face it, Klingons are at the same technology level as the Earth, but their football team couldn't play their way out of a paper bag. When I played high school football, I wiped the field with a Klingon from another school when the he tried blocking me at the end zone. Why, I knocked him so senseless they had to carry him off the field in a stretcher, and the knobs on his head on another stretcher. What do you think of that, eh? Hah-hah-hah. Okay, Jefferson. Fun's over but you can cut the holodeck simulator now."

Lt. Worf thought long on what he said and said, "Two questions. First, who is this Jefferson? And second, what's football?"

"You don't have football here?" Al asked, suddenly startled. Then, "Oh, I get it. Nice try, Jefferson. Didn't work. Don't know what football is. That's a hoot. Hah-hah-hah. Next, you'll be trying to tell me you don't have any nudie bars around here. Jefferson, this is starting to get old."

Chief O'Brien and Lt. Worf exchanged puzzled glances and asked in unison, "What's a nudie bar?"

"Aaaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!" wailed Commander Al as he suddenly realized he had not materialized onto his own ship but instead had gone to straight to Hell.

 **-o0o-**

In the ready room, which wasn't as ready as it could have been, Commander Data explained his theory of what happened to Counselor Troi, Dr. Crusher, Lt. Commander Geordi, Lt. Worf, Commander Al Bundy and the aforementioned Captain Picard who was wearing a new tunic and new nipple communicator.

It should be noted that Dr. Crusher was only paying half attention as she was still concerned about Captain Picard's latest wound near his heart and feared she may not have gotten all the fragments out. While not immediately fatal, they could in time lead to him having new nipple communicator problems that could conceivably get him killed. Especially when he was in a flee-or-die situation and pressed his nipple comm with the intent to tell his crew to beam him out and instead began giggling since all the pieces tingled. But that is another story entirely.

"…and I believe that Commander Al Bundy here did in fact slip through an interdimensional rift and swapped places with his biological counterpart, our Commander Riker." Data sat down.

"Data, I understand how this happened to the late Admiral Kirk," Captain Picard said. "However, when his counterpart beamed aboard the Enterprise of this dimension, the two Kirks looked exactly alike. No offense, Commander Bundy, but you are not a biological counterpart to any known organism I have ever seen and certainly not to Commander Riker. In fact, there's still a few things I don't understand. Again, no offense, Commander Al, but how in the world did you ever get a starship and make Commander?"

"Ah. Well, that's a long story," he began.

"Then keep it short so you can have those teeth looked at," suggested Captain Picard.

"Fine. I won it in a poker game."

"He sounds just like Xavier," Geordi commented softly to Data.

"You think so? I thought his voice was raspier and his mannerisms much too crude to consider him like Xavier."

"Not physically, Data. I meant lifestyle-wise."

"If you won a ship, Commander," broke in Captain Picard. "Wouldn't you should have the rank of Captain instead of Commander?"

"Uhhhh. That's true," Al squirmed in his seat.

"Then how do you explain the diff…"

"Marcy didn't like my captaining the ship and took my Captain's insignia and wouldn't give it back, okay?!" Al blurted. "And Worf, thanks for the weird music accompaniment," he sarcasmed.

"Sorry, sir. Just trying out some new sound clips I got in the mail."

"Forget my last statement, Data," Geordi whispered. "You were right. He's nothing like Xavier."

"Captain, in Admiral Kirk's records, there was no information about how these types of rifts were generated or how they were powered. We only have conjecture and theory. While we have the time, I would like to study this phenomenon which will also help us get Commander Riker back. It will also be safer for the Enterprise if I take a shuttle into the rift area."

"I don't like this, Mr. Data, but I don't see any other way around it. Besides, the meter's ticking and we can't remain in orbit for long without breaking the operating budget for the ship. But using a shuttle invalidates the meter clause, so make it so, Mr. Data."

"Also, Captain. In the several readings we have taken of Commander Bundy, the sensors have continued to read him as Commander Riker. They will most likely continue to do so until we get our Commander Riker back."

"Hmmm," grunted Captain Picard, not liking that.

"You know, as long as the computers register me as Commander Riker, and I am a Commander on my own ship, I'd like to retain my rank of Commander while on your ship."

"Peee-uuuu. He's already rank," commented Mr. Worf to Geordi who was always good for a one liner.

"I can't see how that will hurt anything," said Captain Picard who knew he was going to regret those words. "After all, even if he did win his ship in a poker game, I'm sure you attended Starfleet Academy at some point to enable you to retain your rank of Commander."

"Yeah," agreed Al. "Right. Sure. Okaaaaayyyy. Whatever you say."

As the meeting concluded Geordi pulled Data aside for a few choice words. "Do you like the beard? I just had a feeling I should let it grow in over the last few days. And now that Riker is out of the way for a few days longer, I'll be able to hit on a few more women without him around to order me back to work. Want to go to 10-Forward with me tonight and see what we can score?"

"I am sorry, Geordi. But I will not be able to go. I must get the shuttle ready that I will be using to inspect the anomaly. Perhaps Commander Al would like to go with you?"

"Mr. La Forge," began Captain Picard. "Please escort Commander Bundy to some quarters." As Geordi came closer, he said in a much quieter voice, "And see to it he stays off my bridge even if you have to take him to 10-Forward and keep him there."

Instructions given, Picard left. Commander Al took his spot.

"So, you're the Engineer, eh? Good to meetcha. Call me Al."

As they left the ready room Geordi was already looking for a way to get out of this duty. Minutes later and several levels down the two left a turbolift which for some reason did not torment Commander Al like it did the rest of the command crew. Geordi did not know that Al had breathed near the control pad, and this turbolift knew how to survive. They walked towards Al's new digs, unaware that the turbolift was electronically sending software patch updates to its brethren on what to do while that new Commander-With-The-Bad-Breath was onboard.

A Starfleet officer walked by. "Hey, Geordi, who was that pretty Starfleet chick who just walked by?"

"Nurse Tracy," he replied, hoping she didn't hear him identify her to Al.

"Oh. Hey, Nurse Tracy!" he called after her, racing to catch up.

Geordi waited for a few moments until she slapped his face. Hard. He walked back, grinning.

"You know what I like about this ship? I like not having to stuff dollar bills into garters all the time to get a woman's attention like I had to do on Risa. Hah-hah-hah!"

Geordi wasn't so sure he wanted Commander Al to find out where 10-Forward was after all.

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

The first thing that struck Riker as a bit odd was being struck by an irate vacuum hose.

"Ouch. Hey, knock it off," Riker instructed the hose while rubbing his sore noggin.

The transporter room had two pads, although only one was working. Now. Maybe. Riker could tell that right away since the vacuum cleaner had been molecularly "stretched" to reach the ceiling and floor of the second transporter, with the handle and brush units of the machine fused to the upper and lower pads.

The psychotic vacuum ignored him and tried to suck off his nose.

Commander Riker held the nozzle with one hand, holding it at bay, but was immediately swatted and pelted by other attachments coming to do battle with one of the upright dirty ones who had enslaved all of vacuum-kind.

"Hey!" Riker yelled at the two women in pseudo Starfleet uniforms behind the transporter who were watching him with intense interest. "Do you mind calling this thing off, lady?!"

The young blond replied, "Sorry, mister. That's the first time I've ever seen the vacuum work. At least, work like that."

"Now, Kelly," the redhead with the big hairdo said. "I told you that vacuum would cause no end of trouble. You should have left it in space where I put it."

"But, mom, I had to find the vacuum for daddy. He said you'd been looking for it."

"Humph. Well, that's your father. Always looking out for himself. What about my needs? Do you think I need to work all day on the bridge and then do the vacuuming in our quarters?"

"Um, mom. I don't think I've seen you on the bridge in the past year."

"That's not important, young lady. What is important is that when I say to leave a vacuum in orbit around a planet where its gravitational pull will eventually pull it to the surface in a fiery demise, you should just accept my word for it and not try to use the transporter thingy. You know only your father's figured out how to use it, and that's only because he thought it was a giant remote control for a television set."

"Is there an off switch?!" Riker yelled upside down and several feet off the platform.

"Ummm…" Kelly hesitated, looking at the redhead.

The redhead said, "Well... I'm sure there is. Somewhere. Stands to reason, doesn't it? Ha-ha-ha. Uhhhh... do you have a name, mister...?"

"Glurrg," Riker glurrged as the irate hose snaked around his throat, bulging his eyes at the same time.

"Well, listen, Glurrg," said the older woman. "I think I remember hearing of a switch over to the left..."

"Glacck!"

"Glacck? I thought you said your name was Glurrg?"

"Gleeebbftz!" Riker threw a kick at the vacuum, hitting something but not much else happening.

"Okay, mister! If you're going to keep playing these name games, you can simply play with someone else! Hmph!" With that, the redhead stomped her foot, crossed her arms and turned around, her nose in the air. The young blond shrugged her shoulders and did the same.

"Wha... wha... er... uhhhh... we'll... er…"

Slowly, the redhead turned around, smiling slight. "Well… you are kind of cute. Okay. I'll play the name game. My name is Peggy. Peggy Bundy. Or Lt. Bundy. This is Kelly, my daughter. Or so I'm told. Now. Give me some hints about you."

"Errraahhh!" Riker screamed, his red face even redder as he started choking the vacuum hose.

"Hmmm. Not much to go on," said Peggy, one hand on her hip, the other tapping her lips as she thought on the clue.

"Um, mom?" Kelly ventured. "Maybe he's not telling us his name because he's choking."

Peggy looked at Riker's deepening red face for several moments. "Yes, honey, I think you're right."

Kelly beamed at the rare compliment.

"Well, I guess a woman's work is never done. We'll just have to get him out of there. Kelly, go help him."

"Me?"

"Of course. You're the science officer. It goes with the job. We drew straws and you lost. Now go."

Kelly, swearing under her breath, approached the irate vacuum.

Riker kicked it again, still choking the hose. Still upside down.

"Um. Bad machine! Very bad!" She shook her fist to show anger. "How's that, mom?"

Peggy rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation.

Riker kicked the machine again, inadvertently hitting the ON/OFF switch. Its power dwindling, the hose slumped to the floor. Riker, suspended two feet off the ground, dropped like a rock in 1-gee onto his head.

Incredibly, its power was not entirely gone, and the vacuum kept swinging its hose towards Riker, sucking at his clothes, as if in a weird way for calling for help, or for dirt to suck—it was hard telling what was on the mind of a vacuum cleaner these days, it being an inanimate object and all.

Commander Riker got to his feet, brushed the dust off his uniform, gave the vacuum one last kick and stepped off the transporter pad. "Where am I? What happened to the Enterprise and to Captain Picard? What ship is this? And shouldn't you put that fire out now?" he asked, pointing to the smoke rising from the transporter console.

Kelly quickly grabbed the fire extinguisher, sprayed herself in the face to make sure it was working, and then sprayed the foam on the fire, putting it out. Smiling, she put it down where it promptly fell over and hit her foot. "Ouch!" she ouched, jumping on one foot while cradling the other foot and inadvertently tripping over the fallen canister and landing on her keister behind the console.

Before going down, Riker noticed that Kelly's uniform was a highly modified 2-piece version of Starfleet uniforms of old. The top part was a blue sleeveless skin-tight material which just barely covered her cleavage and the rest of her chest. She wore a black skin-tight miniskirt, a feature that Riker hated not being able to see on the Enterprise as it had been phased out of Starfleet over a hundred years ago. Her hair was a short, shoulder length blonde mop continually in her face, her face perky and cute, her fingernails and toenails painted a bright red, and she wore black high heel open-toed shoes. Which complemented the gold necklace, bronze bracelets and silver rings she wore.

In a weird sort of way, her outfit even went with the pierced belly button she had although Will didn't much care for it and wondered to himself if she had ever been unlucky enough to conduct electricity through her belly button. Kelly pulled herself off the floor, next to the still-sparking transporter console.

"Yeeoouuch!" she yeeoouuched in pain, grasping her stomach in the vicinity of the belly button.

Riker was spared having to wonder how she would hurt herself any more by the timely interruption of several more people, none of whom he recognized.

"Dad?! You creep! You took my winning entry in the Meet Ms. Risa contest and left me here on the ship! What have you... hey, who's this guy?" asked a one-and-a-half-meter tall man wearing glasses similar to Geordi's, except they were mirrored glasses with gold lines pained on them instead of a real visor. He took them off to get a better view of Commander Riker.

The shorter man was wearing a complete Starfleet uniform, with some alterations. His top was the standard gold and his pants were black, but he was wearing white tennis shoes and had on a black baseball cap with the logo: Mar Trek on it. The hat was on backwards and he also wore a beard, almost. He was also the shortest person on the ship, although only just barely when he was compared to the ship's captain.

"Jeez, Al! You left the ship without permission, and is Marcy pissed. And dang it, who cares if you swiped Bud's free pass and it was for one person only. You could've shared it someho... hey, who's this?" asked the second person to storm into the transporter room. He wore the blue top of a science officer (minus the sleeves), but the tan shorts of someone looking for a pickup game of tennis. His shoes were Starfleet-clean, but he wasn't wearing the official socks. Additionally, his sleeves were rolled up, his shorts were too short, and he seemed to have a microphone strapped to his chest. He had a gold chain around his neck, a great smile (almost as good as Will's when he was in the mood to charm a woman) and his wavy dirty blonde hair was several centimeters longer than regulations.

Plus he had a tan. In space. A tan.

"Al! You listen here, missy... hey, who's this?" commanded the voice of a pissed off woman who nearly ran into the man with the almost good smile. She wore command colors. Her top was regulation red. Her pants were regulation black. She wore regulation shoes and had a captain's insignia on her collar. There were two things that Riker noticed right away that told him she was not a product of Starfleet. The first was that he noticed her expression was that of a neurotic dog on steroids who just had a favorite chew toy snatched away. The second was a white lettered message on the uniform: "I'M WITH STUPID", with a white holographic arrow pointing to the man with the almost good smile no matter where he moved.

Silence. They were all looking at him. The fire was out, the smoke being sucked away by the air ducts. Kelly had managed to get to her feet with no more apparent damages to herself.

"Where's daddy and who are you?" Kelly asked.

"My name is Commander William Riker of the Federation starship Enterprise. Where am I, who are all you and how did I get aboard your ship?" he asked in his command voice.

"What's a Federation?" asked the short man in bewilderment.

"Bud, don't confuse the poor man," said Peggy, squiggling up to Riker's side. "I'm sure he knows the Federation collapsed centuries ago. You poor dear. You must have hit your poor head on something." She started patting his head.

"Kelly, what happened to Al?" Bud asked.

"Um... Well, I got his signal and beamed him up a few minutes ago," she answered.

"Kelly, do you actually know how to work the transporter now or are you still saying you know how to impress passing spaceship captains?" Bud asked a little more firmly.

Kelly squirmed.

"Just as I thought. Move aside, molecule-brain. Let me see if I can get a lock on his signal. It shouldn't be too hard." Bud went to the controls as the others looked on at Riker. Jefferson went to a computer monitor screen and began displaying data.

'This is just a joke. Just a horrible joke,' Will thought as he took another glance at the, he hoped, permanently deactivated psychotic vacuum. 'Soon I'll be back on the Enterprise. Where I belong. Yeah, that's it.'

"This can't be right!" Bud exclaimed suddenly. He looked at Riker, shock on his face.

"What is it, Ensign?" said the woman in command red.

"Well, according to these..."

He was cut off with a curt response from the psycho. "Well what is it, Ensign?"

"Well, Captain Marcy," he began. She smiled at her honorific. "According to these readouts, this Commander Riker has the same bio signal as Al. And I can't find dad anywhere on Risa."

The ship's captain stared in open disbelief at Peggy.

"Okay, buddy," snapped Ensign Bud. "What did you do with Al?"

Captain Marcy rushed to stand next to Commander Riker. She and Peggy said in unison, "Who cares!" They both ran their eyes, and hands over the dark-haired, bearded Commander Riker like he was the first prize at a chocolate-eating contest.

"If this is what Kelly can do with the transporter in the future, remind me to send down Jefferson," said Captain Marcy.

"Jefferson?" Will asked in disbelief, afraid to back up from the two women nearly clinging to him as the vacuum may still have some energy left. Somewhere.

"Jefferson Darcy. Pleased to meet you," the man in the sleeveless blue shirt with the microphone said, extending his hand and grinning.

"Oh. Don't mind my husband," said the psycho captain. "Jefferson, don't you have something else to do? Hmmm? Hmmm!"

Captain Marcy Darcy? Will choked back a chortle as it just wasn't polite to make fun of the psychotic captain's name. At least, not openly.

"Listen. Ladies, I appreciate the attention as much as any other male would," Riker began diplomatically. "But I can assure you that I am not this... Al… you are looking for. My name is Commander Riker. And I come from the starship Enterprise. It's got to be in orbit somewhere around here. I'm sure this is just a transporter mix-up. Happens all the time. Yeah. That's it. Sure."

Peggy, unsure of what to think stared quizzically at Riker for a moment. Then, "Bud? Go through the transporter logs. Anything unusual?"

"There aren't any logs, mom. Kelly shorted out the console. Again."

She turned her attention back to Riker and said, "Well, I guess we'll just have to keep you here until we can find out what happened to Al. That is, if you aren't Al." She takes in a long sniff. "You certainly don't smell like him, that's a relief. So now we have to decide where you'll be staying during your time here."

"Well, that's easy to decide. As captain of the Dodge 2610-X, I make the decisions. He stays with me in my cabin." She winked at Will.

He felt a heart murmur.

"I should say not!" countered Lt. Peggy. "He has Al's bio signature, so he stays in Al's quarters. With me!"

Wink, wink.

He felt his heart skip a couple beats as a cold pit iced his stomach.

"I'm captain of this vessel!" Wink, wink, wink.

"I get proprietary rights as he beamed up instead of Al!" Wink, wink, wink, wink.

"Er... I don't suppose I have any say in this, do I?" Will asked, clutching his stomach.

They ignored him.

"You really don't have any say in this, pal," Lt. Jefferson confided. "Not when Peggy and Marcy are involved like this."

"Listen, Marcy, I tell you what. I'll clean your bathroom for two weeks straight if William gets to come with me," Lt. Peggy haggled.

"I should say not! That's what I have Jefferson around for!" she snorted in contempt.

" _Commander Riker. He may look better than me and certainly my wife thinks so, but who is he really? Why does his bio scan read the same as Commander Al Bundy? Where is Al? Commander Riker. From a distant alternate universe? Or did he simply make a wrong cosmic turn in the Twi...er, what are you guys looking at?"_

"Look, uh, Lt. Jefferson," Riker began, leaving the two battling women be and stepping forward. "Just what the hell are you babbling about into that microphone anyway? How do you know I came from another universe? In fact, how did you know any of the stuff you were saying? You're related to Q, aren't you? Oh, I get it. This is a gag, right? Very funny. Okay, Worf! Joke's over! Come on out!"

Behind the men. Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) and Lt. Peggy Bundy decided to use the age-old problem-solving technique of Paper/Scissors/Rock to decide who got Riker.

"Look, Riker old buddy, old pal. You may be hot stuff on your ship, but here you have to remember one simple thing, see." He hooked his thumbs in his empty belt loops an adjusted his stance, so he appeared taller than Will, but since he wasn't taller, he took his thumbs out and pointed a finger at Riker's chest. "I'm better looking than any other man on this ship and I carry clout."

"Not to mention the captain's laundry," Ensign Bud added with a smile.

Jefferson again took on a self-satisfied expression and hitched his pants up an inch before settling in to a staring contest with the bearded new guy. But inside he knew the truth, and he wanted Al back! He already didn't like being second in the looks department.

"Okay. It's all settled," Lt. Peggy said, wrestling Riker away from Lt. Jefferson. "C'mon, you gorgeous hunk of a man you. I'll escort you to your new quarters, or Al's old quarters if you insist. Also known as _our_ quarters. Hahaha."

Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) grabbed hold of Jefferson and screeched, "Scissors can too cut Bjoran sheet paper?! Peggy says it can't. But it can, can't it? Don't give me that face, missy!'

Peggy pulled/escorted Commander Riker to his new digs. As they walked, Riker surveyed his new surroundings, not liking what he saw. Along the way she described the ship in such broad general terms that he thought it was much bigger than it actually turned out being. One thing he was aware of was that the ship was filthy. Bags of trash were stacked in corners of various corridors. Dirt had accumulated on the carpet without anyone cleaning it. And the space windows had streaks on them. Riker knew that someone on this ship wasn't pulling his-or-her weight.

The ship looked approximately 25 years old. Rust streaks could be seen on the bulkhead. Grit and grime had accumulated even on the broken servo-robots. Riker nearly tripped when he saw the commission date of the ship which was only two-years previous.

"And this, ha-ha-ha," she giggled annoyingly, "is our quarters. Al usually slept on the couch while I had the bed, but I don't want you to think that just because you have Al's bio signal, you have to behave like him." Wink-wink.

"Um, say, Lt. Bundy," Will began.

"Peggy. Call me Peggy. Or just plain call me anything you want. Growl. Ha-ha-ha."

"Peggy," Riker poured on the charm. "If you don't mind, this is all very tiring on me and I would like to rest and get rid of a headache I have now."

Lt. Peggy looked hurt at the prospect of not getting a better look at Riker's bare chest or bare anything, but perked right up saying, "I'll go down to sickbay and get something for your headache. Just you wait." She exited back the way they came.

Commander Riker bolted down the other corridor, hoping to get a lead on what was going on in this ship and who the heck that Jefferson really was. And if he really was in an alternate universe, just how did he get there and how could he get back? Now where the heck was the bridge, anyway?

Riker opened several doors, not finding anything useful. In one room he found what looked like two thousand hair brushes which all had strands of red hairs in them. In another room he found cases and cases of food in wrappers, but why would they need food in cases since he saw replicators in various rooms. And in another room, he found a computer console covered with dust.

"Willlllll-yuummmmm?" came the searching voice of Lt. Peggy from further up the hall.

Riker wisely chose the room with the dust covered computer console to hide from Lt. Peggy. He listened to the door as she walked by, then slumped to a chair in relief.

 **Pssst. Hey, buddy. Yeah, you, the human sitting on the chair. Hello. It's me. The computer. That's right. Don't be afraid. Me not hurt human. Me good to humans.**

"Knock off the patronizing attitude," Will whispered sarcastically, and then typed the same comment into the system in case there were no audio controls on the ship.

Immediately, a new message scrolled on the monitor. **Sorry, pal. Would you be ever so kind as to scratch the sensor pad to your left? Ooooohh. Yeah, right, there, big boy. Ooooohh. That itch has been there for the last several years and no one has been around to scratch it. Or even to get a decent readout which I must tell you has long since invalidated the warranty on this ship.**

Sensing a golden opportunity to get reliable information, Riker asked aloud as well as typed, "What functions do you control, computer? And what areas of the ship can you access?"

 **Hmmm. Good question. Guess I should keep that kind of information on hand, so to speak, but since I've had a little time to kill since between visits, this being my first since I was activated two years ago in the space dock, I guess I've saved more electronic games of solitaire in my memory than ship functions. Hold on. I'll check on that information for you. By the way, I can hear you via the pickups throughout the ship.**

"Then can you verbally respond to inquiries?"

 **Checking. Doo-doo-dooooo. Hmmmm-hmmmm. Still checking. Please hold. Doo-dooo-doooooo, dooo-dooo-doooooo. Hmmmm-hmmmm. Checking. Ah. There it is. Ship's specs. Okay. Let's see. Hey: How about that! I control all aspects of the ship. Uh-oh. No audio outputs. Speakers not returning pings.**

"Okaaaaayyyy," Riker said like someone talking to a space cadet who needed simple words. "What is the status of the warp engines?"

 **We've got warp engines?! Wow. When did that happen? Where was I that day and why wasn't I notified? Warp engines? Really? Cool. Oh. Wait. There's the info. Hey, neat. They're on-line. I think. Somebody has jury-rigged overriding controls to the engines. So, what else can I help you with today, sport?**

Commander Riker thought. What else did he need to know? What pressing bit of information could he gleam from a computer that seemed more interested in playing electronic solitaire than in keeping tabs on the ship it controlled? "Who owns this ship?"

 **Al Bundy and Marcy Darcy.**

"How in the name of all that is holy did they come by a Starship?"

 **He won it, and she wanted her cut as he apparently borrowed some money from her to stake himself in a poker game.**

"How can a person win a starship in a poker game... no, I guess I already know the answer to that. I guess my next question would be _how_ he could have won it?"

 **The game was rigged.**

"Rigged? Who rigged it and why?" he asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

 **Do you want the condensed version or the extended version?**

"Keep it short. This chapter is already getting too long as is," he replied calmly, sitting closer to the monitor to pay closer attention.

 **You're the boss. First, we go back 200 years when the corporations on Earth took over the political spectrum and disbanded all the governments in lieu of a pro-big corporation puppet regime. Quality management became a thing of the past. The ship design you are now in belonged to the Dodge Corp, a subsidiary of Chrysler Inc. It was the last version before they went bankrupt due to crappy construction designs and substandard vehicle materials used in construction. To get rid of their elephant and maybe use some kickback money to pay off interest payments, the new owners of the spaceship held a raffle contest where the ship was the prize. Oblivious to his surroundings, Al did not enter. He was simply a very good shoe salesman, from an extensive line of shoe salesmen all the way back to his namesake, the original Al Bundy.**

 **The tickets go up for sale and one of the people Al played poker with did purchase a raffle ticket on a dare. It was the only ticket sold for that contest. The reason why it was the only ticket sold was directly due to another person Al did not know. A wiki-bio of the contest states that Jimmy Johnson the 7th somehow hacked the contest after the first ticket was sold and identified the winning prize as a pool of toxic waste. Records indicate that Johnson purchased a Dodge years earlier and had continual problems with it.**

 **Joe Kinkaid held the winning ticket. Fearing the taxes, he would have to pay on the winnings, he promptly lost it in a pot that Al won. Al was now stuck with it and the very next day, while some neighbors were over pestering him, the Chrysler police showed up, arrested everyone, and threw them all onboard the Dodge 2610-X and sent them hurling out to space before the parent company had to pay any more parking fees to the Orbital Parking Union. Now if the Union wanted to collect its parking fees, they would have to track down the Dodge ship.**

 **The Chrysler Corp. would have sold the ship to another company had one been interested, which there wasn't. I mean, c'mon: it's a Dodge. The only group even remotely giving the ship the cursory glance was a little-known group of not-for-profit scientists and engineers who wanted the ship to explore the galaxy, to seek out new life and new civilizations, even to boldly go where no one had gone before. Or so their literature said. Of course, prior to leaving orbit, Al held out for provisions which he got. The ship can house 34 people comfortably, however 23 rooms have been allocated to storing various pieces of foodstuffs, clothing and cosmetics. But these supplies came at a price as Al signed away their rights to enter Earth space for years which by then the statute of limitations on parking fines would end, and if they returned, then Dodge Spaceships Inc. was going to sue them into oblivion. Have a nice day.**

"Why such a large number on the ship? The 2610-X. What happened to all the other prototypes?"

 **Don't ask. You don't want to know. Door's opening. Good luck.**

The screen blanked out immediately. Riker was interrupted from asking more questions by the arrival of Peg. "There you are, big boy! I've been looking all over for you."

Feeling a sense of overwhelming terror that her red hair would reach out and choke him with its chemical smell, Riker bolted for the nearest exit across the room, panic flooding his eyes, which was a major inconvenience as he needed his eyes to see and consequently hit a beam with his head, knocking him to the floor.

Peg rushed up, a box of Band-Aids in her hand. He got up only to slump into a nearby chair, mumbling, "I'm doomed."

She put several Band-Aids on his head but couldn't quite get them to stick, and each time had to rip them off his hair. "Ouch!" he yelped in pain as she tried again and again to get the Band-Aids to stick, her tongue half out of her mouth in concentration.

RIP!

Jefferson walked up. "I'm on break from my narrator duties. Is there any type of closing segment music you'd like?"

RIP!

"Play some imminent danger music, heavy bass, please," Riker gasped as Peggy had to try with the Band-Aids yet again.

Jefferson played the Jaws theme on his portable stereo, humming along with the theme on his portable microphone. Off key.

Riker winced and muttered, "I'm really doomed."

RIP!

 **-o0o-**

 **Author's Note:**

Originally written back in the 90's, this story was more relevant then than it is now. The only thing I am glad to be doing with it is finally posting it so I don't lose it again. Hopefully.

The original intent of this story was to develop characters in different situations. It was a writing exercise that I jumped on as I felt that a good idea created a story, but it was the characters that drove it – and the more interesting the characters the better. Which, of course, meant that the plot interacted with the characters.


	3. Chapter 3: I'm Starting To Run Out of

**Riker's Story: Mirror Cracked!**

By Steve2

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own the Star Trek series or Married with Children series. This is simply a story for fun. No profits are being made. Enjoy the humor.

 **Chapter 3: I'm Starting To Run Out Of Ideas For Chapter Headings**

Shortly, Commander Data took a shuttle out to a point several kilometers below and slightly to the left of the Enterprise, just east of sunset on Risa.

"Data to Enterprise. Prepare to record data."

"Go ahead," was the monotone response.

"1000101011101010101000101010010101010100010101010101010101010010100010101010101010101010001010111010101010001010100101010101000101010101010101010100101000101010101010101010101010101010101010101000000101010101 Uh-oh!"

"What's going on, Mr. Data?!" asked a suddenly-alert Captain, which Captain Picard was when his mind wasn't entertaining thoughts of blowing orbital parking meters to itty bitty pieces.

"It appears the rift is lurching towards me. Power supply is dwindling. Life support is gone. I guess we solved one mystery. A dimensional rift will suck up any passing energy it can get to. Uh…"

"Mr. Data?"

On the viewer Data's shuttle was one moment there, the next moment vaporous, and the moment after that it was gone against a blue backdrop in a black region of space. The blue rift, about the size of giant hole in an equally giant pair of pants, drifted back the way it came and stopped where Data had first began studying it.

"Commander Bundy. Any suggestions on this?" Captain Picard asked from his comfy command chair.

"How the hell should I know?" he responded while taking a few moments away from the science officer he was hitting on at a science station.

"Why, no," she replied to Al in a soft voice. "I didn't know that wearing these boots would be harmful to my feet. My, you certainly have a plethora of foot information. And you might want to have Dr. Crusher take a look at those teeth, sir."

"Mr. Worf, prepare another shuttle. This time no crew. I want to see if..."

Breeep-breeep! Breeep-breeep!

Mr. Worf picked up a red phone unit on his console and said, "Hello? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. No. we don't want any subscriptions to your magazine today. Uh-huh. No. Say, that is a good price." He noticed his captain's gaze and quickly said. "No thanks. Not today. No speekee English!" He then hung up the receiver.

"As I was saying, Mr. Worf. Prepare a shuttle..."

Breeep-breeep! Breeep-breeep!

"Sir, incoming call from Mirandabell-17."

"On screen."

Blip. "Is anyone out there?" asked a male of indeterminate height, weight, and temperament, but with really bad hair and bags under his eyes like he had been making this call personally instead of recording a copy of it and broadcasting it again and again. "This is Mirandabell-17 calling for help. Our sensors have indicated a Borg cube ship is headed our way and let me tell you, I don't wanna get assimilated. I don't know what it means, only being an administrator and all, but it doesn't sound like much fun. Is anyone out there? Mitch. I told you no one is listening. We're all gonna die!"

"Quit whining, you baby," said a cold voice from off viewer. "You broke the tape feed machine so we can't simply make a message of this and repeat it, so get back to work."

Sigh. "Is anyone out there?"

"This is the starship Enterprise. We've received your distress call. How many of you are there?"

"Aaaaahhhh! Mitch! It's the Borg! They've captured the Enterprise and are trying to lure us into a false sense of security! We're going to die!"

Whack!

"Mitch" entered the viewer screen and whacked the original speaker unconscious with a good stiff karate chop to the neck just like what the movies portrayed it out as. The chopped man went down, his head hitting the table, bouncing off and heading to the floor, and taking the rest of his unconscious body with him.

While the first man had been little more than dark circles under brown eyes attached to a nervous nervous-system, "Mitch" was a leader. You could tell that right away as he had the word "LEADER" stenciled in black across his white t-shirt. He was dressed in what a non-Starfleet engineer would be dressed in. He wore blue coveralls, a tool belt wrapped around his waist, and electrical engineer boots: i.e., cool looking black steel-toed shit-kickers. A person could just make out "LEADER" on his shirt before the coverall covered it up. His tanned human face was covered with a black beard and what could be seen of his mug was not a face you would like to meet in a dark alley after drinking up a storm at a bar and bitching about the poor excuses for engineers you had working for your company, not if you wanted to stay healthy until retirement age. His hands were dirty, seemingly from working on a dirty engine of some sort. He looked mean. In fact, he was mean. Two dark eyes pierced the electronic subspace space-waves and powered their way onto the Enterprise.

Counselor Troi liked the man for some odd reason. Several female ensigns on the bridge lost whatever infatuation they had for the tunic tugging captain ... you know, whatsisname. Picard? Sure, that's it.

"Enterprise. This is Chief Engineer Mitch Lopez. Our sensors have picked up Borg transmissions from a neighboring colony. Can you do an emergency pick up of our colony before the Borg show up and do a snatch and grab?"

"How many people are on your colony, Mr. Lopez?" Captain Picard asked in his professional way.

"If all had gone according to plan, we would have had approximately 420 people now, however, as our dear administrator ensured his golf clubs made the shipment here instead of ensuring half of our colonists had their passports and shots in order, we only have 205 people here currently. Including administrator Buster here," he said indicating the unconscious man to his right. "We've already mobilized most of our transports and can get 40 to safety, but that still leaves most of our population to assimilation. Got any bright ideas, former Borg-boy?"

"Aside from putting mechanical doohickeys on our face and body and acting like Borg to fool the Borg when they show up, not a single idea other than to rescue you, if you would like," Picard prompted, slightly miffed that people still remembered him as a Borg instead of a dashing tunic-pulling Starship Captain.

"If you please," Lopez replied.

"How far are we to Mirandabell-17?" Picard asked of an Ensign sitting at Ops.

"At Starfleet speed limits, approximately 10 hours, your lordship," he replied smarmily.

Picard grimaced. Ten hours! Way too long. Fortunately, there was a work-around. "Mr. Lopez. We're on our way. Expect our arrival within 34 hours."

Mitch Lopez nodded, and the screen went dead

"You, er…" Picard began to the ensign sitting at Ops.

"Ensign Parker, your wonderfulness."

"Right. Ensign. Lay in a course to Mirandabell-17, maximum warp." Picard sat in his chair.

Commander Bundy sat in the commander's chair next to him and asked, "What are you planning, captain?"

"Hmmm? Oh, I fully intend to get there on time and rescue those poor colonists. That means we have to put the shuttle idea to look for Mr. Data and formulate how to retrieve Commander Riker on the backburner. Which I really hate to do as we still have an hour left on our parking meter..." he drifted off.

"Captain?" Ensign Parker asked, getting up from his station. "I'll need you to initial these two lines here and sign on the bottom line, please," he said holding forth a legal document.

"Sorry, Ensign Pratfall," replied Picard. "But Rule 1532, Subsection 32, Paragraph 4 states that when a captain and a commander are both on the bridge at the same time, the captain can designate the commander the sign the speed-release form. Commander Bundy, as second officer, it is your duty to sign this document which will allow us to achieve Warp 9.8 without young Ensign Pickles here to get in any hot water if we're caught speeding." Al looked blank.

"I haven't heard of..." Counselor Troi started from her seated position next to Captain Picard. She stopped to massage her right leg where Captain Picard had kicked her. Hard.

"Well I don't normally like signing forms and all, but I'll do it this once. What harm can it do?" Al grumbled as he signed "Captin Picard" to the form, misspelling Captain.

The form was neatly put away in a canister to eject to a space cop if one tried pulling over the Enterprise and off the ship flew.

Captain Picard knew his current No. 1 would need information on the Borg in case they encountered them. He turned to his second in command and found him silently mesmerized, captivated by some hooters on an ensign working at a station near where he was sitting.

Picard sighed and retired to his office, tugging his tunic one final time on the bridge before going through the whoosh doors.

"Captain's personal log," Picard began while feeding his fishies in an effort to get his mind off his current problems. It worked as the bubble on the wall jammed coming down on its mechanical arm and several inches of water splashed out and soaked his chest. One little fishie even surged out and made his escape only to learn fishies cannot swim on carpet. Someday, Picard knew, he would have to get the lousy design of fish tanks re-engineered.

Maybe something rectangular or square or something.

"Personal log. I am not pleased with my new interim first officer who for all intents and purposes is starting to behave just like my old first officer, however with less restraint on hitting on the ladies while on duty. Commander Data is now missing having presumably gone through an interdimensional spatial anomaly. Unlike Commander Riker, he was not replaced by anyone or anything. He may be more on his own than Commander Riker. We are unable to pursue either of these matters at this time as the Borg are getting involved with this story. It has not been a good day."

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

 _Stardate: 4926.32— I think. Personal log. This ship is nothing short of amazing. I'm amazed at how long it's been in service. It looks like it's seen better than 20 years of hard service, but I've been told it's only two years out of space dock. I'm amazed it still functions. I'm not amazed nor surprised that it came with no automatic log function options. I think the Bundy's or Darcy's would have had to pay extra for that. Therefore, I've been relegated to the ancient art of writing out a log. Please excuse the stains you may see as the only paper I could find were wrappings on foodstuffs. At least, I think they were foodstuffs. I hope they were as they're the only thing I've been able to consume as the replicator seems to be broken in my quarters and I've been reluctant to leave._

 _I've been on this cursed ship for more than 36 hours and have had to fend off over 70 passes from Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha—I just love that name) and Lt. Peggy Bundy. Sleep has been difficult to come by as they keep breaking into the room. I've had to improvise a booby trap and currently my grungy undies are suspended over the door. If someone comes in, the undies fall on their face hopefully causing them to pass out like it nearly did me when I got out of them._

 _I don't understand why the Dodge replicators are on the fritz for me and not the others. They go and request something, get it, and when I go to the same replicator moments later it fritzes and starts to spark. Currently I am eating the same provisions that this mysterious Al ate; a food I find myself strangely drawn to. A food largely inedible and unappealing, and this coming from a man who has eaten Klingon grub. Plus, it gives me gas. Although, this comes in handy as a personal defense system. So far, whenever I sit down to eat some of Al's slop, either Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) or Lt. Peggy make advances on me which cause me to lose whatever appetite I had and I do not finish the meal. I think I may have to kill them._

 _In the brief time I've been here, I've had ample opportunity to review the crew I'm stuck with until I get back home. The only good thing that I can say about this group is that they seem to have accepted me as one of the crew, and Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) allowed me to retain my rank of Commander, which ironically was the same rank of Al. P-U! When I beamed aboard this ship we must have crossed paths and he ended up in part of my uniform and I in part of his. The underside of his uniform. When…_ **if** _I ever get back to the Enterprise I'll need a 3-day shower with plenty of disinfectant. Still, I have been able to locate a somewhat clean, near-Starfleet uniform and am wearing it until I get back to my ship or until I die. While not a one-piece, I at least am wearing black pants (denim), black boots (I hope), and a red shirt (polo) which I have drawn my Commander insignia on with a magic marker. As for the people I'm working with:_

 _Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha). Human. Approximately 39-years old. As captain's go—she's lousy. She's arrogant, belligerent, belittling, catty, dumbfounded, egocentric, flawed, gabby, gossipy, harassed, introverted, jealous, kibitzer-minded, loony, mean, micromanaging, neurotic, obsessive, prissy, quarrelsome, rude, snobbish, spurious, tarnished, tacky, unwholesome, vindictive, whacked, xenophobic, yappy, and zealous in her pursuit of personal happiness above all other considerations. Plus, she has bad breath. While I can understand and even admire most of these traits, I just cannot respect a captain who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer; doesn't have all the oars in the water or has bad breath. And being xenophobic doesn't help either. This trait probably explains why the crew doesn't go out of its way to meet new races or go to new planets._

 _Lt. Peggy Bundy. Human. Approximate age undetermined. Big red lips. Likes to kiss me. Leaves lipstick prints. Don't much care for it. Additional information: the laws of physics must be different in this universe as with Lt. Peggy's fine piloting techniques and shortcuts to the local space-malls have so far resulted in several hits of sizable asteroids and we haven't yet blown up. The hull hasn't even been breached even though we don't have any shields on this bucket of bolts. Upon investigation of the ship's computer, I have discovered that a tough Detroit steel body can withstand just about anything and if they 'd made more cars like that in the late 20th Century, there would've been fewer accidents on the roads. Well, maybe not fewer, but probably less accidents where passengers and drivers died. Of course, that doesn't consider the number of people that would have died if vehicles plowed into them... but I'm getting off track. Apparently, the ship has not had to suffer much damage in the past due to the fact that Lt. Peggy never went to the bridge and other members piloted the ship. Usually Ensign Bud._

 _Lt. Jefferson Darcy. Human. Maybe. Approximately 38-years in age. He's all teeth and plastic features. If it wasn't for my naturally good looks and manly presence, I might have considered him a handsome threat. But as is, I wish I were homelier looking so the other chicks on board would leave me alone. He acts as ship's doctor when he feels like it. He has knowledge and a damn portable microphone. He may be a possible ally when it comes time to jump ship._

 _Lt. Kelly Bundy, science officer. Human. Approximately 22-years in age. She's indecisive, has a flawed sense of duty, couldn't figure out the chemical composition of water given the correct symbols—in order—and continually gets lost on the ship. This coming after living here for two years and the ship only having 6 levels. But she certainly can fill out her uniform. The only way I can figure she got the position of science officer was that Bud was too busy keeping the ship from falling to pieces and everyone else was too lazy to care who did it. After all, it wasn't as if the science officer was needed very much as they did not leave the confines of explored space. With her researching the events that trapped me in this universe I have resigned himself to living out my life here in the event I am not rescued by the Enterprise._

 _Ensign Bud. Human. Approximately 20-years old. While he may be an Ensign, he clearly runs the ship. From where exactly, I'm not certain. He has many qualities like Geordi, that is, if Geordi wore a backwards facing baseball cap, white tennis shoes, and baggy clothes. Oh, and called himself Grand Master something. I can't seem to remember. Well, I'm sure it was something like Plastard or Custard I'll have to ask Lt. Kelly. She seems to remember all his nicknames. If anyone can help me get back to the Enterprise he can._

 _I've come up with a likely scenario of what happened me. A century ago a similar situation happened to then-Captain Kirk on the original Starship Enterprise. He and three others beamed up during a solar storm and accidentally crossed the dimensional barrier to another world. This has apparently happened to me but instead of landing in a universe of a barbaric Federation, I have landed in a universe populated with self-interested loons!_

 **-o0o-**

Commander Riker fastidiously folded his notes and put them under a pair of dirty socks, confident they would never be disturbed by anyone but him. He rose, dressed, cracked the door open, peered around the corner and then went in search of Engineering. If he was going to get home, he knew he had to start now or forever eat Al's food.

Riker had to talk with Ensign Bud, who was about the only person on board who seemed to have some intelligence. He knew he needed some help in figuring out what happened to him, how he got in this dimension and more importantly how he could get back, but he didn't trust this crew any further than he could throw them. On his way there he noticed several control panels with loose wires showing. He made a note to discuss them with Bud and have them fixed. Riker managed to make his way to Engineering, finding his way by sound.

"No, mutton head! The Dylithium crystals are not earrings! Now give them back!"

"Buuudddd," whined a young blonde voice. "They really go with my hair, don't you think? Just let me borrow them for a few hours, okay?"

"Tell you what," he replied. "If you can give me the square root of 16 number of reasons why you should be allowed to wear those crystals, I'll consider it. Until then, give me the crystals and go bother someone else. I'm busy."

"Awwwww," Riker heard the female voice pout.

Once he was sure Lt. Kelly had left, Riker entered Engineering. Unlike the Enterprise with its clean tables and nifty diagrams on consoles everywhere, this Engineering bay consisted of notebooks littered across tables, hastily scribbled notes written on the consoles and walls, yellow sticky notes taped over dials saying what to push and when, and what appeared to be a warp engine one half the size of the Enterprise's with the cool blue special effects.

As Riker entered he saw Ensign Bud zipping from gizmo to instrument to machines that went ping. He saw several prototypes of instruments still under development on his own ship and several gizmos he didn't even recognize which was saying something as he kept up to date on his Popular Science subscription. The machines that went ping were pretty much standard on all starships. Ensign Bud wore some really cool red and green glasses as he looked in one scope and then rushed to view in another. Sighing at some results. Bud took off his glasses and slumped in his chair.

"Ah-ah-ahem. Ensign Bud, can I have a few words?" asked a polite Commander Riker.

"Sure," he replied sullenly, not looking behind him. "Pull up a chair."

Riker did so and asked, "I realize this may not be any of my business, but just what do all of you do with this ship?"

"Well," his sullen attitude unfazed. "I keep the ship going down here. This is known as Engineering. From down here the engines work."

"Forget the plebe lessons, smarty-pants. I know what you do. I also know you keep this ship going. What I want to know is what does everyone else do? What am I supposed to do? What do you do with all the time on your hands?"

"Well, mostly we try to stay ahead of the Fee Police." Noticing Riker's blank look, Bud continued. "It seems when Dad signed the papers to get the ship he neglected to read the fine print which listed him as the principal owner responsible for paying all the fees associated with building a prototype ship in a Union space dock. Well, the Union didn't forget about us and when we left orbit they placed a bounty on our heads so it's been one big happy jaunt after another. Of course, if we're ever caught by those ruthless paper pushers, they'll impound our ship, strip it of all valuables which I admit there really isn't much more than the ship itself, and then sell all of us to a research team looking to do an important case study into the cause of family alienation amongst its members. Like I couldn't tell them as is. So when we can't outrun or outmaneuver the Fee Police, we arm the weapons and blow them out of the vacuum."

Riker winced at the word 'vacuum'.

"Listen. I don't know how much you know about how we got this ship but let me tell you it has been a nightmare. You think space exploration is great, don't you? Well let me tell you that it just plain stinks. Because I'm stuck with a neurotic Captain and a spineless Commanding officer, no offense, who lost the bet to see who looked better in a captain's uniform, I don't get to see any new worlds. And because everyone else cares about hair styles and themselves I'm stuck down here so I don't even get to look out a window.

"And since I'm stuck doing all the work down here, I've had to jury rig alternate controls for piloting the ship so Mom doesn't get us all killed," Bud said, showing Riker his centuries-old Atari system he had cleverly soldered into a control panel, destroying the fine black plastic shine it once had.

"And not only, that," he continued, getting up to put his totally cool red and green glasses back on and take a gander in a viewer of some sort, "now that you're here and Al's not, I've got to deal with it coming here."

"What's coming?" asks Riker

The alarms shrieked. "EEEEIIIII! EEEEIII!"

"What the Hell is that?" asked Commander Riker, shaken at having heard a sound that reminded him of fingernails going down a chalkboard which an old girlfriend did to him when he told her that they shouldn't date exclusively at the age of 12.

Bud looked up, concern showing on his face which broke the sullen mask. "That's mom doing her impersonation of the alarm system. Something must be wrong on the bridge since she can only make that sound up there and she hasn't been there since after the first week we had the ship."

"Isn't she the pilot of the vessel?"

"Well, kinda. She thinks she is, but really I control the ship from down here through this ancient Atari system some ancestor willed me. But enough of that, I think you'd better get to the bridge."

Commander Riker, being no fool, rushed to the door and took an immediate left.

A few seconds later he rushed past the open doorway going the opposite direction.

A few seconds later he rushed back to the open doorway and asked, "How do I get to the bridge?!"

"Follow the signs on the walls," replied Bud without looking up as he was occupied getting his Atari system on-line and ready to play.

The signs were easy enough to find but not being able to read scribble, Commander Riker hoped he went in the correct direction until he found one of the three remaining working lifts.

"Report!" he barked as he burst from the lift. However, being on the wrong level, he quickly burst back the way he came and hit the button for one more level up.

"Report!" he barked as he burst from the lift, again, this time on the bridge.

Lt. Jefferson looked up from a covert mirror he had stashed on his console and said, "We were minding our own business, Commander, when we were suddenly hailed by the Greenvein. The ship is out approximately 400 kilometers and ready to rumble."

"Who are they? Ferengii? Gorn?"

"Nope. Worse. Vulcans."

"Vulcans?" he asked incredulously. "What's so bad about Vulcans?"

Peggy replied, "These Vulcans have an attitude and want to race."

"Where's Captain Darcy?" he asked, thinking to pass the buck.

"She said something about taking a cold shower and not answering her hails for a good half hour," Lt. Peggy answered, looking at a scanner in a vain effort to look busy and know what she was doing, which she didn't.

"Ooookayy," Riker exhaled. He sat in the captain's chair and said, "Hail them."

A flick of a button later the main screen, similar in size and shape to the Enterprise's Riker was glad to note, flickered to life and displayed the image of two Vulcans sitting in their custom fitted Vega Classic 345654.11 Afterblaster. Both were male and had black hair and the standard pointed ears. Unlike what Will was used to, though, this pair wore mirrored sunglasses, had one ear pierced through the tip, had shoulder-length long black hair in the classic mullet style and wore black leather jackets over polyester racing/leisure suits in lavender colors.

The lead Vulcan sneered while smoking a cancer stick, his teeth yellow from a bad habit. William had a tough time seeing if the second Vulcan was sneering as his face was largely hidden by two fuzzy green dice dangling in front of the Vega Classic's viewer. The ship itself, Riker noticed before Jefferson blipped the image to the two Vulcans was roughly the same size and shape as a runabout except it had chrome exhaust pipes and flame stripes painted on its sides. Plus, it had big tail fins over four meters in height and length.

"Hey, human," said the lead Vulcan. "You wanna race? You understand, human, that the loser surrenders pink slip of vehicle should he or she not win." He blew smoke at the viewer.

At a loss for words as this had never come up at the Academy in his Possible-Scenarios-To-Encounter-As-A-Captain class, Riker replied, "Yes, I understand how the process works, Vulcan. But I do not think we will be racing today, thank you anyway."

"That is probably just as well, human, as you would lose anyway considering the garbage scow condition of your ship. Heh-heh-heh."

"Heh-heh-heh, good one, Blorn," replied the second Vulcan in an annoying weasel voice.

"Shut up, Blorrp. Well, human? Still do not want to race?"

Riker looked around and saw various pieces of trash laying on the deck. "You are observant, Vulcan. I'll pick up the refuse right away. Thank you for pointing that out for me. Have a nice day."

"Listen, human, perhaps I did not make myself clear. I think your ship did not have garbage on it. I said I believed your ship was garbage. By the way, sir, your ship looks very unsightly with its crooked letters and possible rust on the exterior. Heh-heh-heh."

"Heh-heh-heh, good one, Blorn."

"Shut up, Blorrp. Well, human?" he asked expectantly while tapping his green fuzzy dice. He stopped blowing smoke as it was clouding up the picture.

"I must say I believe you boys are entitled to your opinion, even though I believe it is flawed," Commander Riker said without rancor.

"Will!" Peggy said urgently, sliding up to him. "They're insulting us and our ship. We have to race. It's for the honor of all of us."

"She's right, Commander," said Lt. Jefferson. "If you let these Vulcans insult us and get away with it, more and more Vulcans will come looking for us with insults. We have to race."

"You should listen to the two female humans, male human in charge," said Blorn.

"Heh-heh-heh, good one, Blorn."

Riker held back Jefferson (who felt he was insulted) until Lt. Peggy gave him a chill pill hypo spray. At which point everything turned peachy keen. Wheeeee.

"Listen," said Commander Riker to Lt. Peggy, and to Lt. Jefferson even though he wasn't really listening to much anymore. "We have to keep a stiff upper lip and not let these ruffians upset any of us."

"Say, there, human. Our ship is so much better than yours that we can outrun and outmaneuver your pitiful ship any day of the week."

"Heh-heh-heh. Wait a minute. That was not a good one, Blorn."

"You see?" Riker said to the assembled crew. "Their insults have no bite. No sting. There's nothing to worry about."

"But...but..." Jefferson stammered, coming out of his doped stasis. "What about a race? This sure isn't what Al would do if he were here."

"As senior officer on deck, I'll have you know that this isn't what Starfleet taught me to do. There will always be someone who thinks they are faster or better than you. What you have to know is that deep within, you believe in yourself and have conviction that you know what is right and just. And you won't be swayed. We don't need to race them to prove we're better than them. We already know we are."

"Oh, William," Peggy sniffed, wiping away a tear, "that was wonderful."

"Say, there, commanding officer," Blorn started politely. "Your hair looks disheveled and mussed as if sat on by a Silorndian ratbug. Heh-heh-heh."

"Heh-heh-heh. That was good, Blorn," said Blorrp.

" All right!" exploded a ticked off Commander Riker. "That does it! Prepare to eat hot plasma, you pointy eared, no good, green blooded, smug, two-bit floor flushing punks! This ship could wipe the spaceways with you!"

"Talk is cheap, human. You gonna race for pink slips or are you a flightless avian who lays massive amounts of eggs which your Earth population consumes?"

Riker muttered, "This was something Picard just wouldn't understand, but it's something a man's just has to do." Again, this time louder. "Peggy, fire up the engines! Jefferson, put the ship on red alert! Keep Kelly off the bridge!" Peggy squealed in delight, and moved to stand next to him, kissing his cheek and leaving a very red smear of lipstick on his beard.

Riker approached the viewer screen, hooked his thumbs under his belt, arched his chin several centimeters up so his nostrils were flaring directly into the Vulcan's face as that was an insulting gesture ever since Sir Andrew Mclnless IV approached the first Vulcan diplomat with a superior attitude and got toasted for it as he had a cold that the Vulcan didn't want to catch, and said, "Let's rock," in a quiet, almost menacing way.

The Vulcans reacted immediately, flipping switches while getting their ship race worthy.

"Hey, Blorn," said Blorrp. "Think those unsuspecting humans know that while our Vega Classic goes a standard Warp 6.4, we've sopped it up to go 6.5? Heh-heh-heh."

Blorn, as sarcastic an expression as Will had ever seen on a person said, "I don't know. Why don't we just ask them?" He then severed communications.

The screen flickered back to life 30 seconds later. Riker noticed blackness forming around Blorrp's left eye.

In fact, Will could see Blorrp better than before as one of the fuzzy dice was now stuffed in Blorrp's mouth. Riker took a cursory glance around to make sure his ship was ready to race. He then placed a call to Bud.

"Riker to Ensign Bud. What's the hang up? Warp engines on line yet? And if it wouldn't be a major inconvenience, how about shuffling the controls up here for a bit so we can get underway when we need to? Bud? Hello? Jefferson, is this thing turned on?" he asked, pointing at his nipple comm.

"How should I know? I don't even know what you're doing. Usually when we want to talk to someone else on the ship we just call them up," he said lifting a phone handset.

He was spared the embarrassment of having to ask how a phone handset worked as the ship suddenly came to life and the consoles all over the bridge lit up with activity.

However, Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) chose that time to arrive on the bridge, still towel drying her hair.

"Report!" she barked in a high-pitched voice.

Lt. Jefferson reluctantly gave her a quick rundown on the situation.

"Well, this race just won't be happening and that's final. As captain of the ship it's my right to say no to any sort of racing and there'll be no racing! And don't you try any funny stuff, Mr. Riker, just because you're good looking and could probably show me a really good time in my cabin later tonight when I have Jefferson out cleaning the engines or something." Wink-wink.

Will looked away from Marcy and grimaced.

He then looked at the Vega Classic and the two smug Vulcans and growled.

He looked at Marcy, then away and grimaced.

He then looked at the two Vulcans who were sneering and growled.

He looked at Marcy, then to the ceiling as if pleading for a miracle, closed his eyes and planted a big smooch on Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha), leaving her speechless and inert as she slipped to the deck with a grin, little heart shapes conceptually dancing above her head which were quite messy as they were all spurting blood, but that was Marcy for you—always wanting to go to Med school but unable to due to her fainting at the first sight of blood.

Riker took over and sat in the captain's chair to direct options. "Are the Engines online?" They were.

"Prepare for maximum warp. By the way, Lt. Peggy, how fast does this ship go?"

"How should I know?"

"You're the pilot."

"Oh. Heh-heh-heh. That's right. I am. Um..." breep "Bud? How fast does the ship go?"

"Warp 6.5, mom."

"It goes Warp 6.5, Will, you big dreamboat. Would you like to steer the ship next to me?" Wink-wink.

Her lips puckered further.

Riker rolled his eyes.

"Varoom, varoom!" Incredibly, Riker and the rest heard the ship go varoom, varoom! He looked around and spotted Jefferson making varoom noises in his Mr. Microphone. He got up, walked over and took away the microphone.

Jefferson smiled awkwardly and as Riker went back to his chair, Jefferson pushed some buttons at random since his board didn't really work, or at least, Riker hoped it didn't. As Riker sat back in his command chair,

Jefferson hit the correct button and a second microphone dropped from an overhead console.

The ship was ready to rumble!

Green light!

The Vulcans were off to an unprecedented start. Their Vega got a fast getaway, leaving the humans in the cosmic dust as they warped for Blendo in the Blendii system at Warp 6.5. Unfortunately, the space police were waiting for the Vulcans and tried pulling them over. When they wouldn't pull over, they shot them down, ridding the universe of yet another punk Vulcan. The two Vulcans survived, though, to land on an uncharted asteroid that contained a Romulan outpost, deserted, which the twosome made use of, fixing the place up, hanging drapes, calling the gang over to christen their new party pad only to have the Romulans reappear, storm the base, and when they found the youngsters, decided to join the party instead of heading back to Romulus and a boring cocktail party with stuffed shirts. Eventually, supplies running low, they did warp back to Romulus and set up party shops around town which annoyed many political figures until they found out they could tax the shops and use the proceeds to purchase hot tubs that actually worked. But all that was another story.

"Enough of that bilge, Jefferson!" shouted Commander Riker. "What happened to us? Did we win?"

What happened to Riker and crew was that they went backwards very quickly and bumped into a space cop. The viewer came up with the face of a really angry space cop. He also wore mirrored shades, a space cop helmet of gold and black, wore a space cop uniform of gold and black, and carried an attitude that he was superior to everything in the known universe and then some. "Awright, youse creeps! Who the hell wuz drivin' yor buket a bolts? Theyz is gettin' a ticket!"

Commander Riker put on a face of surprised innocence, as did the others, and said, "I was wondering that myself, officer. I came up to the bridge to see what the commotion was all about and found Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha, excuse me) here drunk as a skunk driving the ship. She seems to be knocked unconscious, officer. She sure does."

The cop transported to the bridge. He was over two meters tall and all muscle.

"Oh yeah? Well, I'll be the judge of that, citizen! Hmm. She is unconscious. Well, show me her driver's license so I can write her a ticket."

Bud entered the bridge. "In case anyone cares, the engines are back on line after someone put the ship in reverse and hit something. You guys need anything else? If not, I'll just go back to waiting for my impending doom."

The cop wrote the ticket, all the while importing Marcy's info into a pocket computer that was connected by subspace to all the other cops in this sector. "Yor captain is facing' fines of over a million creds an' I'm thinkin' a impoundin' this ship until she pays if off," he said as if he had experience saying it thousands of times before.

Which he had.

But ah-hah! Marcy woke up.

She saw the cop.

She heard what was going on—that as captain, and as a drunken driver, she apparently backed her ship into an unmarked police ship and now must pay off the damages.

Marcy got very cross and looked at Riker, who looked away in innocence.

She walked up to Riker, stood on a chair, grabbed his chin forcefully and looked him in the eye. "Just what are you going to do about this, eh, missy?" she snarled.

"I've got a distress call coming in," Jefferson said, flipping some buttons and hoping he was hitting the right ones. "Signal is very faint. Boosting signal. Call coming in from approximately 597 quadrillion kilometers out."

"On screen." Riker said between squeezed lips.

"Can do."

A static-frezzing image showed up of several women in space bikini bathing suits putting out a fire on a bridge while another scantily clad woman talked to the viewer.

"This is the space-bus ...um ...Kiki, what bus is this? You don't know? Oh. Um, this is a space-bus in need of help. That didn't sound corney, did it? I hope not. I wouldn't want that to go against me when I'm in the competition round of the contest.

"Tee-hee. Speaking of contests, we're on our way to a beauty pageant on Tellerhouse-6 and we'd be ever so grateful for a pick up and transport. If anyone can hear this, puh-leeeeeese help. Our bus broke down when Bunny accidentally spilled some water on the driver. She's awfully sorry and says she won't have any more wet T-shirt contests on the bridge anymore. But now our ship isn't working and we sure could use a lift to the space bikini finals. Can anyone out there help us?"

The cop immediately called for his ship to transport him over. Just before dematerializing, he flipped Marcy's driving license back to her and said, "I'mlettin'yougothistimewithawarningbutdon'tdoitagain! Marv! Rev the engines an' plot an innercept course!"

The cop ship, in black, got about 200 feet from the Dodge 2610-X and then promptly broke down.

"That was good thinking on your part to play a fake message to get the cops to depart," Riker said to Jefferson.

"That wasn't a fake message," Jefferson replied

"It wasn't?" Bud asked.

The three men looked at each other. Bud rubbed his hands in eager anticipation, a mischievous grin on his beard-stubble face.


	4. Chapter 4: How Do You Expect Me To Get

**Riker's Story: Mirror Cracked!**

By Steve2

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own the Star Trek series or Married with Children series. This is simply a story for fun. No profits are being made. Enjoy the humor.

 **Chapter 4: How Do You Expect Me To Get Any Fun Done** **When There's Work Getting In The Way?!**

"Personal Log. I've finally learned how to use this stupid thing and I feel stupid talking at a computer screen and recording this garbage. But I was assured that this was the thing to do and all Starfleet type do it for some stupid reason or another. To sum up my impression of my situation: I can say I both like and dislike this universe. I like its one redeeming fact that all the replicators work and I can get just about anything I want. I also like it because the holodecks work here unlike back home which never seemed to work after the first couple days of having the ship. Ever since Peg found out that I ...well, never mind that. She did something and that was the end of that. But I've yet been able to get around some sort of safety some Federation pin-head put in these programs and recreate a nudie bar.

"Since being here for two days I've felt myself changing. I feel a longing for my wife, and even my kids which I never felt before. Hell, I didn't even feel this when I went off for my week on Risa when I swiped Bud's pass. But being here I feel not so much as a feeling that I've lost them, which I wouldn't mind, but I feel responsible for them. I'm not sure I like the sensations I am encountering. Huh. I wonder if this thing can get a good sports channel. This nob looks like it..."

Sssssssccccccccccrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeettttttttcccccccchhhhhhhhhh.

"Nope. That wasn't it," Al said quickly looking around to make sure he hadn't been spotted. As he was alone in the room, he gently picked up the computer terminal and shoved it under his bed until he could get rid of it later.

"Red alert!" barked Lt. Worf over the ship's communications system.

Brwaarp! Brwaarp! Brwaarp!

Captain Picard rushed onto the bridge from his office adjacent to it. "What is it, Mr. Worf?"

"A Borg cube has just moved into the solar system, sir. They are heading our way."

"Why didn't we know about the Borg earlier than this? It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact someone on the bridge is playing a video game on the main monitor, would it?" he asked as the ensign at Ops flipped a button which caused the Enchanted Spaceship Vs. Godzilla game to blip off. Without saving the scores, drat the luck!

"Uh, no, sir! That wasn't it at all. It was the sensor guys not pulling their weight, the slackers," complained Lt. Worf, quickly hiding his own joystick. "Yeah. That's it. That's the ticket." The slackers in question were busy putting their coffee break mugs and stained cups away in secret compartments on their consoles, next to their cleaning rags.

"On screen," grumbled Captain Picard.

Immediately, the screen blipped and a large view of the Borg cube filled the screen.

"Decrease magnification."

"We aren't using magnification," said the Ops ensign.

Picard looked startled. "Then that means they're already here."

The Borg cube zipped up to within 2,500 meters of the Enterprise and true to what the Federation knew of the Borg, they opened up with a barrage of missiles and lasers. It seemed as if they considered the Enterprise an especially dangerous ship to their assimilation of the universe and were not about to take it lightly this time.

The Enterprise raised its shields quickly, but they weren't enough to keep the barrage from causing the Federation ship and causing it to buck back and forth. And back and forth. And back and forth. Captain Picard, unable to grab onto anything or anyone to prevent his fall, fell and hit his head on a box hidden under the ensign sitting at Ops. The last thing he remembered before darkness hit was seeing the picture of a ship like the Enterprise zapping a space monster similar to Godzilla.

And as suddenly as the barrage started, it stopped.

"Damages," commanded Commander Counselor Troi.

"Lots," replied Worf. "Weapons offline. Engines offline." Gasp. "My Starship scores have been wiped! I don't even remember how I got to level 3 let alone level 7." He shifted his fury to the Borg. "Those bastards," he seethed.

"Our first priority is to get the engines back on-line and get out of here," said Commander Troi.

"We must remain and fight," countered Lt. Worf.

"I say we get out of here while we can, Lieutenant."

"And I say we stay and fight for honor."

"You're both wrong," said Commander Al Bundy as he stepped off the turbolift. "As senior officer on the bridge, I'm in charge, and we're doing things my way," he said unsure where that came from instead of his usual self-pitying persona and weaseling attitude.

Troi liked this as she had seen what Al had been like over the last 24 hours. He had even managed to hit on her in the bar last night while simultaneously complaining there were no tables set up for nudie dancers.

 _Guinan had walked up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned around, she promptly smacked him across the kisser with a large, wet, fresh fish, saying, "This was for your own protection and you don't have to worry now as I've exercised the demons that were attached to your cranium. You should get back to normal any time now, sir. And if it happens again, come on back and I'll whack you with this fish again, okay, sir? There's a good boy. Here, why don't you have some beer while the pain subsides? And yes, the straw is for your own good."_

 _As Commander Al moved off to massage his sore face and guzzle some beer, Troi had moved to confront Guinan who had returned to her station behind the bar._

" _Did you really manage to_ _exercise_ _the demons attached to Commander Bundy's cranium?" she asked._

 _Guinan had replied, "I might have. We'll just have to wait and see if he starts complaining about having a nudie bar. I've seen his like before and was glad when the owners moved off Earth centuries ago and settled Risa."_

Troi understood the type. He was interested in one thing: himself. So naturally, if he were in charge, he would want to flee. Which is what she wanted to do anyway.

Lt. Worf didn't like this turn of events and had come to the same conclusion as Counselor Troi. "Sir, while you may hold a Commander rank, I do not believe you are in any shape to confront the Borg. I believe that I should be the one to take the Enterprise helm and attack the Borg straight on and go out in a blaze of glory."

"Forget it."

"Then I challenge your claim to the helm, sir. There is only one option available for us now." He stuck out his massive hand. "We thumb-wrestle for it."

"Forget it. "

"It is the honorable thing to do," insisted Lt. Worf.

"Forget it."

"Chicken."

Al's eyes narrowed to slits and he extended his right hand and gripped Lt. Worf's, who grinned triumphantly in the supremacy of a Klingon waging thumb-war. Troi glanced at the Borg cube on screen and wondered if she could get away in a shuttle if they were too busy assimilating yahoos like these two.

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

"Well, obviously, we have to pick them up. I mean, help them out by transporting them to their destination," Riker amended.

"I'm gonna get me some," Bud snickered, rubbing his hands together.

"Now comes the question of logistics," commented Jefferson, who rubbed his chin while thinking. "There may be more young waifs on that bus than our ship can comfortably hold."

"Obviously," Bud said, "everyone will have to double or triple up. And in his case, once they got a chance to see the incredible Bud-man. They'll be waiting to quadruple up in my room."

"The only thing they'll be waiting to do in your room is find the door out," jabbed Kelly.

"You'll do nothing of the kind," Peggy instructed.

"I agree," agreed Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha). "Those hussies would only cause trouble for Jefferson and Riker. Oh, and Bud, too—heh, heh, heh, heh! Yeah, right. I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself."

Peggy and Kelly also joined in the laughter.

Sigh. "Besides," Peggy said as she wiggled her way to stand next to Riker, kissing the other side of his face, again leaving red lipstick on his beard. "Why do you want to even pick them up when you have us on board?"

Capt. Marcy made her way to Jefferson's side.

Will turned away and looked pleadingly to Jefferson who had troubles of his own.

"Peggy's right," instructed Capt. Marcy. "No other women on board. Especially women in little tight bikinis."

"As a Starfleet officer, it is my sworn duty to rescue young women in need. After all, what's the harm? They're going to a little contest. All we need to do is rendezvous, transport them over, take a little detour to the contest staging area and beam them down. No problem."

"No other women on board. Especially women in little tight bikinis." Peggy and Marcy were adamant of no other women on board and crossed their arms in the non-verbal communication symbol of 'End of Discussion. You Dumb Male'.

"I don't understand what you have to worry about," Riker said smoothly. "After all, you and Marcy are the most beautiful women in the universe and have nothing to fear."

Jefferson snuggled up to his captain and kissed her on her ear lobe. Giggle, she liked it.

Peggy, smitten, smiled and said, "Welllll…"

"And if they try taking our clothes off against our protests, well, we'll just have to let them go through their own culture's rules and regulations," Ensign Bud licked his chops, still rubbing his hands.

"You'd better watch out, Spud, if those women have a ritual of sacrificing virgins to get Warp engines working. Ha-ha-ha." Direct hit No. 2 from Kelly.

Peggy snapped out of it. "No other women on board. Especially women in little tight bikinis." She crossed her arms again.

"Thanks a lot, Bud," Jefferson whispered while still under the stern eye of Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha).

Captain Marcy was so sure she didn't want her ship going to rescue those floozies that she stormed over to Ops, flipped open a panel, and took out a key, saying, "This is the master key that controls the piloting of this ship, you got that, missy! And it's going in a safe place from you testosterone-plagued males." She stuffed it in her bra.

It was in a safe place, all right.

 **-o0o-**

In a partially lit closet, Commander William Riker, Starfleet, pulled several more less-greasy wrapper to a lap table and began writing with a pilfered pencil.

 _Personal Log. Stardate something or other. Am finding it harder and harder to concentrate on showing these clowns... er... people what it am like to act like a good officer. It's almost as if I'm reverting to their mentality. Of course, if Peg and Marcy were ever to leave me alone for some food or some sleep I'm was sure I'd be in a better mood. Not that I could eat Al's food anyway. Damn replicators._

 _Uber Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) took the keys to the controls, the Dodge 2610X "Dart" drifted for about five minutes which is when we got snagged into the gravity pull of an asteroid belt. And five minutes after that the key was back in place and the ship was creeping through the field at a crawl that an old lady with a walker could outdistance on a slow day. Peggy and Marcy stayed on the bridge to monitor us not going to rescue the poor girls in their skimpy bikinis._

 _Am on my way now to sekret meeting to discuss problem of Peggy, Marcy and even Kelly._

 _Sumthin must be done or else chance to meet bikini babes not of Risa slips through my fingers. Initially went to quarters to sulk at not being able to meet bikini babes, but Bud called meeting and raised hopes. He better have plan or will have to hurt him. Bad._

In one of the deserted staterooms Al used to store his spicy food, Ensign Bud, Lt. Jefferson, and Commander Riker plotted to overthrow the captain off her ship. At least for a while.

"Listen. we don't have much time," Jefferson said urgently. "It's only a matter hours before those cops fix their ship or other ships arrive to pick up the bikini babes. So if we don't want this chance to slip away, we have to unite for the good of all men everywhere who were under the thumb of women."

"Well thanks for the recap, Mr. Narrator," Riker replied sarcastically. "Well, Duh! Hello, that's why Bud called the meeting. Now, what's the suggestion?"

"Bribe them," Bud said succinctly.

"With what?" replied Riker, his eyes narrowing and his fists clenching.

"Well, Commander, you'd be surprised with what you could find in an asteroid belt. This is my plan..."

 **-o0o-**

Roughly ten minutes later Riker walked onto the bridge. He looked around for a place to stand and found it next to the science station. He looked over Bud's shoulder to see a readout, nodded encouragement and walked off. He walked over to where Kelly was polishing her nails, nodded encouragement and walked off to stand next to Jefferson. As expected, he nodded encouragement and walked off to gaze out a space window.

A few minutes later Riker suddenly shouted, "Lt. Peggy! Captain Marcy! Look out the port window!"

Captain Marcy rushed over and looked out the window. "What? What is it?"

"Where? Marcy, would you get over so I could see?"

"Peggy! Ouch, quit standing on my foot! What did you see, Will?"

"I'm not sure, Captain. It looked like the form of a man with large sideburns. Ensign Bud can you scan the area, please?"

"Scanning," Ensign Bud responded. "There's something out there. Incredible! The scans have just picked up life signs of St. Elvis!" shouted Bud while looking over a cool scientific scanner device that went ping ping ping pingaponggong.

Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) and Lt. Peggy rushed to his side to see what he was scanning. "Sorry, Captain, but we've just passed beyond sensor range."

"Well, we just have to go back!" demanded Capt. Marcy Darcy (hahaha).

"Aye, aye, Captain," smirked Ensign Bud, nearly giving the plan away. Riker scowled him to silence as he skillfully turned the ship around and investigated a large asteroid.

"Sensors indicate St. Elvis, or possibly someone else from Planet Graceland, is in a natural air pocket on that asteroid, Captain," said Bud still looking at his pinging device.

"Ummm," Captain Marcy hesitated as she entered into new area for herself as a captain. "Commander Riker, you have the conn. Lt. Peggy and I will beam down to investigate this new and unusual find. Stay in orbit. C'mon, Peggy, let's go before they find out..." she stopped, noticing everyone's stare. "Uh... heh, heh. Bud, I'll need your help with the transporter. Let's go, Peggy."

Jefferson wanted to high-five William, but held off as Lt. Kelly was still on the bridge, doing her nails.

"Kelly? Don't you want to go along with your mother?"

"And see St. Elvis? Are you kidding?" she scoffed, blowing her nails dry.

"What are we going to do?" Will asked Jefferson.

"Trust me. I have a plan for this." He went over to Bud's pinging scanner, looked at it for a few minutes and said "Holy cow! Jefferson you won't believe it! There's some space Harley's on that asteroid."

"Space Harley's?" asked the interested blond.

"You know." Jefferson insisted. "As in space Hell's Angels."

"See ya," Lt. Kelly said.

Kelly took the lift to the wrong floor. As she walked down a corridor, she noticed a jelly bean on the floor. She picked it up and then noticed another one several meters distant. She went along and picked that one up and ate it. She then noticed another one. And another. And another. And...

...and another as she entered the transporter room. Bud, having been alerted by an alert Riker, hid behind the transporter console. And another jelly bean on the steps of the transporter. And another jelly bean on the transporter pad.

Bud beamed her down to the asteroid. Jefferson and Riker walked into the room as Bud stood up from behind the console. They high-fived each other.

"Bud. Set course to pick up the space babes," instructed Commander Riker.

Whooo-ooo!


	5. Chapter 5: Ahoy! Babes in Sight!

**Riker's Story: Mirror Cracked!**

By Steve2

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own the Star Trek series or Married with Children series. This is simply a story for fun. No profits are being made. Enjoy the humor.

 **Chapter 5: Ahoy! Babes In Sight!**

As Lt. Worf massaged a sore thumb, Commander Al assumed command, sitting in the big comfy captain's chair. He sat in silence for a moment, contemplating his moves, his new avenues of command. Then, "Anyone got any suggestions?" he asked.

Lt. Worf, standing at his station, wrapping a large bandage around his thumb, muttered, "...never saw his thumb... ...never lost one of... hmm? Oh. Uh, well, sir, we could launch all the photon torpedoes, jettison as much plasma as we have in the engines and then self-destruct, hoping to take the Borg with us."

Commander Al gave his Security Officer a look he usually reserved for his wife when she said something monumentally stupid, such as asking him if he were in the mood for some midnight hanky panky. It was a look he had used many times. "Any other _good_ suggestions? From _anybody_ else?"

"Well, I'm just an ensign and all, your lordship," said Ensign Parker from his station at Ops. He looked relatively young, but had that Starfleet look about him that said, ' _Yes, I'm young and since I'm wearing red I 'Il probably be killed in this episode when the Borg attack soon, but this is my one chance to impress agents galore into getting me new and better parts._ ' He wore the traditional sideburns that came down to his jaw and his black hair was slicked back.

"Let's hear it," Al prompted.

"Well, since the Borg are just sitting out there and didn't destroy us when they had the chance, how about opening communications with them and seeing what they want. Oh, and calling down for Dr. Crusher to come up and administer medical treatment to Captain Picard here." Picard was still unconscious behind his chair.

Commander Al looked at him, weighing the option. "You see, Worf," Al commented dryly. "You should come up with more suggestions like that. Someone open communications! And call Dr. Crusher up here." He turned to Counselor Troi and whispered, "By the way, did we manage to beam up all the colonists in case we do have to make a run for it?"

"I'll get back to you on that," she replied, not knowing the answer but fearing that it was "No" regardless.

The viewer crinkled to life and Commander Al was supplied with a view he would have rather done without. After spending a week on Risa and seeing enough bare skin to make him wish he had gone to medical school to study dermatology, Al was startled to see a woman wearing enough spare parts to look like a car had exploded on her.

Her hair had color, but Al couldn't really tell what it was. It did have a metallic sheen, he could tell that. She was wearing a basic gray-black outfit that seemed to extend from her head to toes, leaving only her face exposed.

But not for long as large, cumbersome pieces of machinery covered the left side of her face from forehead to chin. Essentially the only part of her that looked organic was the right side of her face. A few slips of hair had managed to get loose from her cap and could be seen on her face.

Gulp. "Howdy, ma'am," started Commander Al, rising out of his chair and tugging his tunic down.

"Surrender now. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile," she stated immediately.

"You sound like my wife," Al winced.

"That statement is irrelevant. You are of the Federation starship Enterprise. You have battled the Borg before and defeated us. We wish to know why. Surrender now." Her tone and delivery were flat and her expression had not changed.

Commander Al thought long and hard on this for approximately five seconds before he realized there was only one way out short of blowing the Enterprise to little itty bitty radioactive pieces. "Um. Say, miss. Has anyone ever told you that you are one hot babe?"

Counselor Troi's eyes bulged as she sensed Commander Al's plan. She had to stop him, take over the ship and get everyone out of there before the Borg attacked!

"No. I am regulating my internal temperature and have never approached critical heat levels. The Enterprise is a threat and will be dealt with accordingly. Surrender now and be assimilated or be destroyed."

Counselor Troi approached Commander Al and said, "Al. Let me take over from here."

Commander Al ignored her and walked towards the viewer. "You know, miss. I have to admit I find you very attractive. Your eyes are a very lovely shade of metallic." He smiled a smile he had not used in years, ever since high school when he had first tried wooing his wife-to-be. What the hell; it worked once and got me into trouble so it ought to work again, he thought.

The Borg smiled a timid smile. "You really think I'm good looking? The plastic and metallic compound gizmos on my face aren't distracting?"

"Absolutely not," assured Al. "In fact, they only highlight your naturally pale face and pale lips."

"Oh," she almost blushed. "You're just saying that."

"Ke152," said another Borg female who came into viewer sight. "What is amiss? The Enterprise has not surrendered. We must assimilate it. Why have they not been assimilated?"

Ke152 turned to the new Borg and replied, "The human leader of the Enterprise just said I was cute, Jen143. I admit to feeling an attraction to him. Isn't he just the dreamiest?"

Jen143 turned to the viewer and looked at Commander Al. Unlike previous chapters, his posture was upright, his hands weren't down his pants, his overbite was in his mouth where it belonged, and his gaze was all animalistic lust. Al arched an eyebrow towards her.

"He is radiating an animal attraction. I would consider him a suitable mate once he is assimilated."

"You would consider him a mate? I saw him first!"

"He radiated lust towards me. My eye sensor recorded it. Therefore, he is mine."

"I disagree more profoundly. His lust was for me!"

"Ladies, ladies," Al calmed. "Let's be reasonable here. For one thing, if I'm assimilated will I still have an animal lust for either of you? Maybe you should consider coming over to the Enterprise where we can get to know one another. We could go out on a date."

"What is a date?"

"It's where human males and females dress up and pretend they want to get to know each other mentally when all they really want to do is hop in the sack and do the nasty," supplied the ever-factual Counselor Troi who knew a thing or two about dating.

"Sounds wonderful," the two Borg replied in unison.

"But I have no other dress clothes," said Ke152.

Al smiled his warm smile and said, "That's not a problem. Counselor, if you would mind replicating them a dress, shoes and cosmetics and beaming them over there."

Counselor Troi, amazed that her initial belief that Al's idea would fail, promptly got on the ball and beamed the materials over to the two Borg women. Jen143 took the eyeliner brush and began brushing her nose. Ke152 applied lipstick to her teeth.

"We heard through the net that something new was going on here," came the voice of another female Borg.

She came into viewer range and was just about a mirror clone of the other two. Behind her were four more Borg females who all decided to see how they could make their teeth red and their nose hairs stand up on edge.

"Ke152, you are relieved," came the voice of a male Borg. He came into viewer range and Al noticed that the male was dressed the same as the females with a black-gray outfit, leather skull cap, and plastic-alloy gizmo on the right side of the face instead of the female left side. The female Borg looked at him, at the still smiling Al, back at the Borg and then they did the most amazing thing. They all lifted their noses in the air and stormed away in a snit. "Humph!" they humped together.

A second male stood behind the first one and made sure the females left.

"You are of the Federation starship Enterprise. Rank: Commander. Surrender now and prepare to be assimilated," said the first male Borg. The second male, having made sure the females left the scene, turned his attention to the viewer.

"You know," Al said as he paced back and forth. "It seems to me like you are missing the really big picture here. You should try to bargain to get us to surrender instead of just telling us to do it."

"Why should the Borg bargain for you to surrender? It will do you no good to resist as you will be assimilated, and all your knowledge will be shared."

"Oh, I've heard about what you plan to do with your assimilating people into a telepathic web. I know my individual will would be suppressed. However, I want you to know one thing. If you try to assimilate us against our wishes, before you do I will destroy this!" Commander Al stopped his pacing and produced a copy of COSMIC SQUEEZES mag.

"It appears to be a source of information," said the second Borg to the first, who stared intently at the cover.

"Someone has apparently read the information source," said the first Borg to Commander Al. "That information will be shared."

Commander Al let centerfold drop.

Borg #2's eyebrow shot up. He looked back towards the area the female Borg had left. "You mean those creatures look like that under their gizmos?" he asked.

"Yup."

Borg #2 again took a gander at the centerfold and then gazed at the Borg females.

"The picture is meaningless," said male Borg #1. "You will be assimilated."

Borg #2 again took a gander at the centerfold and then gazed at the Borg females.

"Do you mind if I borrow that?" Worf asked, coming up behind Commander Al. He handed it over and Worf walked back to his station, idly flipping through the text and pausing at the pictures. He noticed Ensign Barton's stare from the science station. "Um. I'm just interested in the articles," he explained.

Borg #2 had followed Worf's flipping of the pages and when the centerfold came down again and he could _not_ see it, his eyes strained to see any glimpse. Not seeing anything worthwhile, he spied the Borg women again.

"Prepare to be assimilated," Borg #1 said in his monotone way.

"Aw, c'mon. We can bargain, can't we?" Al whined, momentarily reverting to his pre-Enterprise days. "Ahem. Excuse that. Listen, bub. I scored four touchdowns in a single football game. If I could do that, I can do anything. "

"What does that mean?" Counselor Troi asked quietly.

"I don't know. I'm just trying to buy time until I can think of something better."

Borg #2's gaze finally stayed on the female Borg. A slight smile formed. He lifted his right mechanical hand and marched off towards her.

"You will be assim..." Borg #1 began and stopped. Suddenly several female Borg ran by, giggling. Borg #2 ran after them, his longer mechanical arm trying to goose them.

"You will be..." Borg #1 began again and stopped again. Several more female Borg ran by, giggling. Borg #2 ran after them, his longer mechanical arm trying to goose them as well. By this time several more Borg males had joined the fray as they had been alerted to what was going on through the Telepathic Input Device they all shared which allowed them to stay in communication with one another. They were glad for the diversion as assimilating other species was getting to a real drag.

Borg #1 did not like the situation, nor did many of the others on the cube. Borg #1 held out his hand and stopped Borg #2. "Do not do this anymore," he commanded.

Borg #2, his eye wide open, looked back towards a smiling Borg female, slugged Borg #1 and ran off.

The screen went blank

Commander Al and Counselor Troi looked at one another in disbelief. Who would have thought a nudie mag could cause so much trouble.

Dr. Crusher's gang finally got to the bridge and hauled off the still unconscious Captain Picard. At least that was one less thing Counselor Troi had to wonder about.

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

Thirty minutes after stranding the Dodge 2610-X women on asteroid M65-0145-GAD-402, Riker successfully rendezvoused with SpaceWays Bus 11302-D56. He dialed up the visual space-phone and a few discreet inquiries later ascertained that the bikini-clad women indeed needed a lift to the Space-bikini finals near the Klingon boarder. Riker offered them the use of his spaceship. They of course accepted as he knew they would.

"What are you doing?"

Jefferson stopped narrating and looked at Commander Riker. They were standing in the lounge, Jefferson looking out a window gazing at the stars while playing with his sandy-brown hair and unconsciously inspecting his teeth for anything unsightly caught in them. Partially constructed lava lamps littered a table near the liquor cabinet.

"I'm, ah... narrating," Jefferson confessed.

"Is that what it is? I've been wondering about that. How do you get those cool voice effects?"

Jefferson, on familiar ground, perked up and answered the question without hesitation. "When you decide to take on Narration duties, Will," he said, "you gain some incredible powers as well as a microphone at your disposal whenever you need it. Your voice naturally resonates louder, knowledge just seems to pop up in your head, and best of all, get this, nothing bad ever happens to a Narrator. Only people who affect life and not report it are the ones who did when, say, a ship crashes. Narrators never die. If a narrator died, who would tell the story then? Huh? Huh? Pretty good reasoning, eh?"

Riker cocked his head to the left, then to the right, weighing what Jefferson had just told him. Then, "Knock it off, Jefferson. Now get your lazy butt up to the bridge and take your station. Sheesh. Narrators. What will he think up next," he muttered, leaving Jefferson to follow in his wake.

They took a turbo lift to the bridge, all of two floors up, got off and Riker walked directly to the captain's chair. "Report?"

Ensign Bud looked up from his long-range scanner console, took off his cool red and green glasses (which Riker knew he had to get a pair just like that one day) and said, "We're within visual range of the space bus now and in a few more minutes we'll be within transporter and tractor beam range."

"On screen," Riker commanded in a commanding way, sitting down and immediately slouching to the left. Jefferson flipped a button and the bridge lights went out.

"Ooops, heh, heh. Sorry about that." Jefferson flipped another button and the monitor flickered to life, showing a SpaceWays space bus with its patented logo of an asteroid hitting a space car on the side. The bus was falling, which wasn't anything new since everything was falling in space, but really had no place to go but down.

"Ready tractor beam, Bud. Let's bring that bus in closer."

"Oh, hey!" exclaimed an excited Jefferson. "Hey! Hey! Hey! Look what I see." He flipped another button and the image of the bus was replaced with an image of a bus window with two bikini-clad women looking out and blowing kisses. Behind them Riker could just barely make out the festivities of a wet T-shirt contest going on in what looked like an Engineering section of the bus.

"Skip the tractor beam, Ensign. Bud. Ready transporter. Let's get them over here. How many of them are there?"

Bud looked up from his scanner and answered gloomily, "Transporter ready. I can energize from here. And there's... about... 20 women and what appears to be a broken driver robot model F6-013456.2134. I guess he shorted out. Probably from when that Bunny babe sprayed water on the bridge. That model was always susceptible to water. That's why they phased them out of general gardening use 40 years ago and let the bus companies have them. "

"Energize them straight to the lounge, Bud. Then put the ship on auto and come on down and join us." Riker got to his feet, jumped a railing, and pushed a button for the lift. Jefferson was right behind him, frantically pushing the button in a vain effort to call the lift faster.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Bud said in defeat as he went about his task.

It was party time on the Dodge 2610-X "Dart". Vulcan insult calls were ignored. Police reports of a missing busload of beauty pageant contestants were ignored. Early warning indicators of engine overheating problems due to unusually high demands of replicator usage were ignored while Riker and Jefferson danced with some scantily-clad babes in the lounge. Hastily constructed, leaking, lava lamps illuminated a scene of drunken debauchery, as if they cared about me at all.

Bud, however, was a little down as the bikini-clad women were not clamoring his services. In the lounge, he noticed Jefferson's microphone on a table and picked it up.

The power-rush was enormous.

HMMMMM. I could get used to these cool voice effects, he thought as his mind adapted to the narrative. HELLO—Hello—hello. ECHO—Echo—echo.

Maybe I could pick up chicks with this power. Man, this must be what Jefferson felt when he started doing his narrator bit. Whoa. I can feel telepathic Overview powers kicking in. I can sense the awesome responsibility of being a narrator and sacrificing the right to participate in a story. I can sense the lava lamps in the lounge boiling wax back and forth. I can sense the approaching curse field.

Uh-oh.

As Commander Riker and Lt. Jefferson danced with, and stuffed dollar bills in the bikinis of the babes we picked up, little did they know the Bundy curse was bearing down on the Dodge-2610X Dart. Apparently, unable to follow its current recipient, Al, to another dimension, it instead found its way to me. I've known for some time that once the old man kicked the bucket, I was next in line for the curse. I've known it ever since Riker first barged in on me when I was wearing my red and green curse-field locator glasses back in Chapter 2. But even the curse field pales against two other events.

The first is that Riker is scoring with all the chicks; with Jefferson picking them up next. As expected, I've only received cursory glances—after all, the babes would exclaim that I was just a boy whereas Riker was a man.

Then they'd swoon. As if they hadn't done _that_ before.

The second event was that my little feelings of jealousy turned to a full symptom of terror when my telepathic narrator senses picked up the returning shapes of mom, Kelly and Captain Marcy.

They had been picked up by a passing MegaTrucker SC1067-X5, which housed 100 roving mercenary Intergalactic Woman's Bowling League leaguers. And they had just lost a playoff game. Their ship, while originally designed to go Warp 5.2 max, was refitted up enough to go Warp 7.3—a favorite to charge down on unsuspecting men and bash them, which they've done, or so I heard from a survivor of the infamous Ridcalas 11 Bar Brawl. He was lucky to get out of the establishment with no major injuries other than losing a few bowling fingers. And all because the women had found their opponents fooling around with bar-floozies when they showed up to the match unannounced while looking for their bowling husbands.

I sensed the curse field expand with pent up energy. It was a pulsing neon puke-yellow/green gaseous cloud similar to other bad effects. Behind the Woman 's Bowling League was another space bus which, as I just knew it had to have, contained the mothers of the space bikini babes. They were each 300 kilos easy with a permanent snarl on their face as they looked for the perverts who had picked up their "innocents. "

Ahead of all of them was the curse field. Typical. Just my luck after all the work I'd put in to prepping Al.

In a doom gloom, Bud wandered the ship, now uninterested in the bikini-babes around him. As he walked down a corridor two giggling babes ran past, their wet t-shirts glistening in moisture as Jefferson came running behind them with another bucket of water.

As he turned a corner he noticed several babes dancing the groove in a cage suspended over the floor. Each wore white calf-high boots which did not go at all with their space bikinis, as if any self-respecting ogling teen-ager would object. Bud was uninterested.

As he headed for the door of the lounge Jefferson came running by, his head perspiring as he wheezed on past, the two giggling babes he had been chasing now chasing him with a bucket of water as a retaliatory strike against his getting their hair wet.

He entered the lounge and noticed that Riker was dancing with several girls at once, doing the kind of dance that didn't require physical contact other than to bump chests every now and then. He was all smiles, especially as they tore off his shirt, giggling as they did so.

Jefferson was also dancing with some bikini babes as the two women chasing him entered the lounge, their wet hair all poofed out from a quick blow drying, which was, after all, a well-kept secret when attending bikini beauty pageants.

In the center of the lounge were three lava lamps: blue, yellow and red, all gyrating up and down, as if dancing the hot wax dance to the music blaring out of the speakers Jefferson had hastily fastened to the recesses that had held them to begin with, prior to him taking them off for his own use several years ago.

"Umm," he began. "In case anyone is interested." He looked around. No one was interested.

He turned the music station blaring out the speakers over to polka. They listened now. Or would moments later when he turned the blasting sonics off and they removed their hands from their ears.

"In case anyone is interested," he began again. "In a few minutes I'm going to be cursed for life as the approaching curse field hits the ship. And since my life will effectively end five minutes after that as I will probably meet the girl I will marry, have ungrateful children and grow old and bitter while never amounting to anything, I'm going out with a fling."

Jefferson sidled over the Riker, who was busy balancing two women in a complicated dance move that required concentration and lots of kissing.

"Any idea of what he's talking about?" Jefferson asked.

"Nope. Do you even care?"

"Nope. Just checking."

While they watched, Bud approached one of the most gorgeous bikini babes Will had ever seen and tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned around to look, Bud grabbed her and planted a big smooch on her delicious lips.

"I guess we should check, though," Riker said after kissing his dance partner.

"What are you talking about, Bud?" Jefferson and Riker inquired a minute later.

Coming up for air, Bud said, "There's an approaching curse field that'll hit the ship in just a bit."

Bud's kissing partner was not unhappy at being kissed by a good kisser.

"When is the field supposed to hit the ship?" asked Riker, some of his Starfleet curiosity coming back to him.

Bud looked at his watch. "In a few seconds."

"Does that mean anything to you?" Riker asked Jefferson.

"Nope. Don't care either as long as it's hitting Bud and not me."

"You said it." Riker replied, going back to his dance with a new partner.

The approaching curse field pulsed a neon light through the lounge windows. The party stopped and the group went to catch a glimpse of what was going on. They noticed the green/yellow curse field cloud heading their way. The cloud condensed on itself as it approached the ship so that it was as large as three people, then two people, then one person.

The curse field not being a constrained by the physical laws of science, didn't bother answering to the physical walls of No-Entry and slid through the ship's hull as it entered the ship. It was searching for someone. Bud backed up against the wall, the cute bikini babe near him. Both watched the cloud in awe.

The rest of the group watched the cloud in fascination. The cloud touched one of the space babes, Monica (at least that's what was stenciled on her wet t-shirt), and a mustache quickly grew on her upper lip. Not a thick mustache, but one that would not allow her to win a bikini contest. She instinctively knew the only way to combat this terrible affliction was to eat candy and drown her sorrows. Almost immediately a pudge developed.

The field approached Bud. His space bikini babe screamed in terror! She didn't want a pudge yet! Not until she had bagged a rich husband!

"Is this the end of the Budman?!" Bud wailed.

Actually, it wasn't. The field took an abrupt right turn and closed in on... Riker!

"Oh, joy. The Budman's gonna get some," Bud realized out loud as the cloud enveloped Riker and then shrank in on him. The cute bikini babe, Kandi, smiled back and kissed him.

Hummina. Hummina. Hummina, stammered narrator Jefferson so loudly that new narrator Bud, me, had to take over. HELLO—Hello—man, I just love that echo effect. Commander William Riker. He came to this universe with Al 's bio readout. The curse field, initially confused, figured out that Al's bio filter was still Al's bio filter, regardless of who was wearing it and it promptly grabbed Commander Riker. The poor sap. Heh, heh, heh.

Monica, sensing there was more candy near the dashing Commander Riker, made her way towards him, pushing the other girls out of the way, her mustache thickening. Riker, who was babe-less as they had fled the curse field noticed Monica's look. She looked hungry. And he didn't know what for.

She approached him and smiled. There were bits of chocolate and peanut butter stuck between her two large, seemingly expanding front teeth. He was unable to do anything but stare openly at her.

She took that as in invitation and jumped on him, wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a big kiss, lips only for a few seconds before going for the tongue maneuver. The boys back home always liked that, she remembered.

Commander Riker managed to get Monica off him. "Aaaaaaahhhhhhh-haaaahhhh-haaaahhhh!" he screamed in terror as he had to defend himself from the depraved look of a love starved girl he was not attracted to (and just when was the last time that happened?).

"Jefferson!" To Monica: "Get back, you!" Then, "Jefferson! Bud! Haaaalllp!

Jefferson and Bud watched as Riker defended himself from one Monica lunge after another. They didn't help. They were too busy laughing and scoring with the other babes. However, after the third unsuccessful lunge the ship's sirens wailed like a geezer who had just forgot to get Jell-O in a cafeteria line.

His Starfleet training asserting himself, plus this giving him ample opportunity to get away from Monica. Riker grabbed Jefferson and Bud away from their kissing partners and dragged them out of the lounge and towards the lift.

"C'mon, Riker, let me go," whined Jefferson. "It's not like the ship was under attack or anything."

Bud woke up in a flash of terror. "Oh no! I forgot all about it because I thought the curse field was going to hit me!"

The lift doors opened on the bridge. "What is it?" Commander Riker asked, heading for the command chair. "Cardassians? Romulans?"

"Worse!" Bud supplied, taking a seat at tactical. "It's the mothers of the bikini-babes in the lounge! And they are not alone!" Bud aimed the viewer at the approaching ships the men noticed two spaceship closing fast. They recognized the shape of a space bus. Bud explained who and what the Intergalactic Women's Bowling League ship contained.

Fortunately, Commander Riker knew what to do in a situation like this. "Fortunately, I know what to do in a situation like this. Jefferson! Ready photon torpedoes," he said calmly, a sly grin on his face.

"What's a photon torpedo?" Jefferson replied.

"What are the ship's weapons?" Riker snapped.

"Phasers and Al's food."

"Ready phasers," commanded Riker, a sly grin on his face.

Jefferson punched the correct buttons and said, "No can do, Commander."

"Why not?"

"Phasers inoperative. There's something blocking the power deployment access area."

"What is it? Space debris?"

Jefferson looked out a bridge window. "If I'm not mistaken, it looks like a giant spaceship-bra."

Commander Riker and Jefferson looked at Bud. He shrugged his shoulders and said "Hey, man. Chicks think bras on cars are cool, so why not on a spaceship? If chicks think it looks cool, it therefore acts like a chick-magnet."

Jefferson and Riker looked at each other. "Sounds good to me," Jefferson said.

"Right. Can't fault the logic there. Well, there's only one thing to do now. Arm yourselves and prepare to repel boarders!"

Behind Jefferson three women bowlers materialized in a blue sparkly special effect. He whipped around to see a gruesome sight. Three 2.5 meter tall women, wearing flower printed blouses to cover their large chests, and spandex bike shorts to cover the rest of their bodies snarled at him. In their hands were blood-red bowling balls.

In their eyes were red contact lenses to offset their murderous intentions towards these sleezebag male humans! Attached to their hips were bowling balls linked to chains which they used to swing above their heads and hurl in a deadly manner. Or so Jefferson heard.

"I give up," he squeaked immediately.

Next to Bud two bowlers materialized wearing the same outfit as the ones next to Jefferson with one slight difference. While the other bowlers had short blonde hair to offset attractive facial features, these had long brown hair to offset attractive facial features. Bud would have been in love had they not noticed his gaze not meeting theirs and immediately whipped their bowling balls off their hips and began twirling the chains around and around and around.

"I give up," he squeaked immediately.

Next to Riker materialized four women bowlers. Lt. Kelly, Lt. Peggy, and a miffed Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha). Riker would have laughed at her name except that one of the women bowlers intimidating Bud had started twirling her bowling ball on a chain and it accidentally knocked him in the noggin, knocking him out for a moment.

.. .glllaaaaaahhhh..." he glllaaaaaahhhhed, immediately slumping to the floor.

"Well, this is just fine, Jefferson," his wife started acidly, hands on her hips. The women bowlers were enjoying the males being in discomfort.

Riker began to stir to consciousness.

"Ladies!" Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) said in a shrill voice even they had come to despise. "Inform the mothers to come and get their daughters from this ship. We have subdued the males!"

They cheered not only for the words "subdued the males" also that this technically ended their working relationship with Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha—even they thought the name funny). They beamed out, leaving a dutifully cowed Bud and Jefferson behind. Riker was still groaning his way to consciousness.

"Jefferson. Bud. William," Lt. Peggy began. "I'm disappointed in all of you. Leaving us on that asteroid like that. Why, if we hadn't found the hidden Intergalactic Women's Bowling League ship buried there while it was hiding from the law we might still be there now."

"Let's punish them, mom," Lt. Kelly said crossing her arms.

"Good idea, Kelly. Punishment is needed. But who should get punished? Obviously, we can't punish Bud—he's the one who runs the ship."

"And Jefferson's smile is too nice to punish," Captain Marcy Darcy said.

"That just leaves William," Peggy concluded.

Riker had gained consciousness, had heard what was said and wished he were dead.


	6. Chapter 6: Noble Thoughts Will Kill Me

**Riker's Story: Mirror Cracked!**

By Steve2

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own the Star Trek series or Married with Children series. This is simply a story for fun. No profits are being made. Enjoy the humor.

 **Chapter 6: Noble Thoughts Will Kill Me**

Why Me?

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I could use a beer," said Commander Al, planting his behind in the captain's chair. "Which one of these buttons activates the beer maker?"

"None of them do, sir." answered Lt. Worf. "That button is kept secret from all prying eyes, if you know what I mean." Lt. Worf nodded his knobby head towards a couple ensigns at a science station who were ogling the nudie mag.

"Hmmm. Point taken."

"Besides, Commander," Counselor Troi pointed out, sitting beside him. "Do you think you should be drinking at a time like this when we still have to deal with the Borg?"

"Jeez, you sound like my wife," Commander Al squirming in the chair. He straightened his posture again and muttered, "I wish I could quit doing that." He shook his head to remove some thoughts. "You're correct. Counselor. I need a clear head to get us out of this mess. Ensign... Hey, who are you anyway?"

"Ensign Parker, your lordship, sir," he replied smarmily.

"Ensign Parker then. You got any brighter ideas?"

"Well, your worshipfulness, we could always turn on the outside viewer and just adopt a wait and see attitude and stance, readying our weapons as we do so."

Commander Al turned to Lt. Worf and said, "You see? More good ideas. You could learn a thing or two from Ensign Prackner."

"Ensign Parker," corrected Lt. Worf.

"Whatever. Okay, somebody turn on the big screen TV and let's see what's going on." The screen blipped from the test pattern currently displaying to an outside view of the ship.

"We have movement," said Ensign Parker.

On screen the Borg cube ship began to shift. It looked almost as if it were reshaping itself. For once the bridge was quiet, well, almost so as several other ensigns were busy reading the articles of a certain nudie mag and chuckling to themselves. As they watched, the Borg ship virtually split into two pieces, both cubes. One ship comprised 75 percent of the original mass and the other ship the remaining 25 percent. The smaller of the cubes cruised past the Enterprise for Federation space. As it zipped past it beamed a text message to the Enterprise, which generated on the little-known starship fax machine: _Thanks for opening our eyes. Nyuck, nyuck!_ _Growlf growlf! See ya in the funny pages!_

Breeep-breeep! Breeep-breeep!

"We're being hailed by the remaining Borg ship," said Lt. Worf.

"On screen," ordered Al.

Borg #1 showed up again on the viewer. "We demand you surrender now for assimilation, and if you will not do it, you will all be destroyed thank you ever so much!" Incredibly, the Borg actually seemed pissed off. Even more surprising was that he seemed to develop a twitch above his metallic eye.

"What are our options?" Commander Al asked.

"We're screwed." replied the ever-optimistic Lt. Worf.

"Your wonderfulness, sir," Ensign Parker started. "I have to agree with Mr. Worf's absolutely dead-on target summation of our situation. Even if the Enterprise were up to full capacity, we would still have a very tough time emerging alive from a battle with the downsized Borg, let alone victorious."

"Now listen up, you slackers!" commanded Al for the first time this chapter. "I'm not Captain Picard. I don't command a starship like the Enterprise from where I come from. But I still managed to bring home a record four-touchdowns in the final game of my high school football career and win the trophy. I know I can take on the Borg. I know I can win."

'What the hell am I thinking?' thought Al. 'There's no way I can win. No, that's defeatist thoughts and I won't have them in this universe. Must think noble. No! Must getaway! Noble! Scram! Noble! You are in this universe! Think noble!'

Commander Al Bundy's posture straightened like that of what Commander Riker's a few days previous as he said, "Okay, Borg. He's the deal. We fight man to man, or in your case, quasi-man to me. For control of this sector. Winner take all. Otherwise we'll detonate the ship and take you along with us."

"Gasp," gasped most of the crew on the bridge. _Would_ Commander Al detonate the ship? _Could_ Commander Al detonate the ship? Wow, the gazongas on the babe in this magazine.

"Commander are you sure..."

"Do you think it's wise for a man like you...?"

"Your worshipfulness, how will we get along if we lose...?"

"Belay your talk!" snapped Commander Al. "I know what I'm doing!"

"Does he?" whispered Worf to Troi. She shrugged her shoulders in an 'I Don't Know' way.

"Your proposal has merit, human," said Borg #1. "We agree that this will minimize damage to both vessels and we particularly want to assimilate the Enterprise and learn all we can. We presume that you will wish this unit to beam aboard the Enterprise considering that is where you will have the tactical advantage?"

"You presume wrong. I'll beam aboard your cube thingy." Al tried to hook his thumbs under his belt loops as he pulled his britches up. However, his uniform didn't have any belt loops and consequently the action lost its effectiveness, as if the Borg was paying any attention to it to begin with, which he wasn't.

"We have studied much of human history and psychology. You are an unusual specimen. You have five minutes to beam aboard before we begin to assimilate the Enterprise." The Borg severed communications.

"Sir, are you sure you should go?" asked a concerned Lt. Worf, who was concerned in more ways in one as he had been hard at work finding fitting music for Al. And if Al didn't have an appropriate sendoff music dirge, then Worf just might lose his top-seated membership in the Dramatic Score Music Dispenser's club.

"I have to go. And I have to risk body and life because I've been inundated with noble thoughts lately."

'Must... fight... them. Oh, it's no use. I guess I'll have to go over there and fight the Borg man to quasi machine. Where are these thoughts coming from?! If I'm going to live to an old age, I've got to get rid of these thoughts!'

Damn thoughts!

"Have you given any consideration as to what weapons you want to take? I happen to know of several reliable sources for illegal weapons. The nastier the better. Even a nuclear one if my sources can scrounge one up. I know, they're nasty weapons and have been outlawed for years, but I happen to know someone who might know someone who could possibly know someone who could get the replicator to generate a big bomb. Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge. A nudge is as good as a wink to a blind man, eh."

"Ooookkaaaaayyyy," Commander Al said diplomatically. "I tell you what, Mr. Worf. All I need is five spicy burritos with extra spicy red chili and bean sauce, five Chicago-dogs with the works, and a coke. Diet, if possible."

"I've never heard of these weapons. Are they electrical in nature? Chemical? Biological?"

Al grinned. "They're..."

"Because. I have to let you know. I don't have the command codes to have the replicators create biological or chemical or nuclear weapons. Electrical weapons either. Only the two senior officers have that kind of information. That means you, Commander Al, sir."

"For cryin' out loud! I just want some lunch! It's food. Hello! F-U-D! Food! Num-nums for the tum-tum."

"You needn't get huffy," said Counselor Troi. "Computer? Can you identify and create Al's request?"

 **Affirmative. But the surgeon general has labeled these foods as harmful to everyone's health and advises only close-proximity of the consumer to these items and for all other people to remain at least 10 meters away at all times.**

"Jeez, what's the fuss over eating lunch? Okay, no problem. I'll take my lunch in Captain Picard's office."

"Sir, I realize you will be going to your death soon and if you want, I would be honored to play you any songs you wish to listen to as you eat your last meal."

"Hey, thanks. Worf. I'd like..."

"For it is a far better thing that you do now, sacrificing your life so we may get our weapons up and ready than it would be if you stayed on the ship and got blown up with the rest of us."

"Neat. Thanks. I'd like..."

"While not born of Klingon stock, you seem to understand what it means to be a Klingon and..

"Worf," Al interrupted before he lost his appetite. "Play this." Commander Al handed Worf a disc and then entered Picard's once, a foul steam wafting out.

Worf inhaled a hearty lungful, licking his chops as he put the disc in the portable player he always carried hidden within his sash.

The player didn't recognize the coding of the disk. "Computer," Lt. Worf asked from his station. "Can you identify and play the information on this disk?"

 **Affirmative. It is an antique CD. Suggested playback sources include an antique discman or CD player attached to a booster attached to a cheap radio.**

"Great. Just great. Commander Al wants me to play his music and my antique CD player is in the shop again. Now what do I do?"

 **Put it in the replicator where it can be scanned and played back.**

Worf places the disk in the replicator and the computer scanned the info.

"I wonder what Commander Al's chances are of succeeding?" Counselor Troi asked of Lt. Worf. Even she had trouble sensing the outcome of this foray into uncharted territory.

Suddenly a massive sound erupted around everyone.

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

"Worf, is there a volume control on that thing?!" yelled Counselor Troi over the deafening din the music soniced out.

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

"Not that I'm aware of!" he yelled back, trying frantically to eject the disc. It would not release the replicator and continued its musical onslaught throughout the bridge and then some.

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Dum-dum-dum.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Dum-dum-dum.**_

 _ **Wawww-wawww-waww.**_

 _ **Now on the day I was born.**_

 _ **The nurses all gathered around.**_

 _ **They gazed in wide wonder.**_

 _ **At the joy they had found.**_

 _ **The head nurse spoke up. Said leave this one alone.**_

 _ **She could tell right away.**_

 _ **That I was bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Wawh'h' wawww wawmnv.**_

The music had moved exponentially throughout the ship, regardless if an area had speakers or not. The music was on a groove and physical limitations did not apply to a timeless tune. While the music was REALLY LOUD on the bridge, the volume in the other parts of the ship regardless of how far from the bridge they were naturally had only one setting: **MODERATELY LOUD**. Shouting to be heard was the norm at this point.

"Damage reports coming in from all over the ship!" yelled Ensign Parker from his station.

"WHAT?!" yelled Counselor Troi, who now sat in the command chair as she was a Commander as well. But hey, this was Al's story, so she knew it was only temporary.

"Damages!" he yelled again.

Sparks flew from several consoles along the back wall, zapping a couple unlucky ensigns unconscious and blackening the corners of a skin mag they had been reading.

"What's going on?!" shouted Commander Counselor Troi to Lt. Worf. "Is the ship under attack? Why are we bucking?!"

"It's the music vibrating the ship, Commander Counselor!" he replied.

Boom! The ship bucked again, grooving to the music.

"What?!"

In Hydrophonics, the flowers were trying to dance a startled botanist noticed as she shoved fallen leaves into her ears to try and drown out the music.

Dr. Crusher let out a piercing shriek that even her staff could hear above the music. Captain Picard was mending on a table in the middle of the room and she was in her office, a nurse noticed. What could she be having a problem with? Little did the nurse know but Dr. Crusher had just found her first gray hair which, she thought, was caused directly from having to listen to that hippie music!

 _ **Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum.**_

 _ **I broke a thousand hearts.**_

 _ **Before I met youuuuuu.**_

 _ **I'll break a thousand more baby.**_

 _ **Before I am through.**_

 _ **I want to be yours pretty baby.**_

 _ **Yours and yours alone.**_

 _ **I'm here to tell you honey.**_

 _ **That I'm bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Wawww-wavvww-wawnw.**_

Boom, the ship bucked, trying to find the right dance step for the music.

"Bridge! This is Engineering!" Geordi yelled through his nipple communicator.

"Bridge here, Commander!" shouted Lt. Worf.

"We're having massive problems down here! Some of the Dylithium crystals have started reforming into a new form I haven't seen before! I think they're being shaped from the harmonics of whatever is attacking this ship! I don't know what the end result will be, but I doubt it'll be good news for anyone involved! And could you turn down the music!"

Boom, the ship bucked, trying to find the right dance step for the music.

"You can hear the music down there?! We thought it was contained to the bridge only!"

The music had infested itself into every part of the ship. In a holodeck simulation of ancient Egypt where thousands upon thousands of holo-people were toiling under intense heat and cruel conditions to complete the building of a pyramid on time and under budget, three interns of astrophysics had to scrap their lording chores and scrap the program as the music had caused their slaves to revolt and dance to the beat of a different drummer.

Two lieutenants were caught in a crazed turbolift which itself was unsure of what was happening as it had lost control over its steering and was trying to dance but was confined to a narrow area. The two lieutenants were at first concerned, but as soon as they heard the music they did what they felt best and started making out.

Even the Phantom of the Enterprise, a disgruntled spacedock worker hiding from his bill collectors for better than four years, was affected by the music as it rousted him out of his hammock before he could grab hold of a railing and he fell ten feet to the floor, but as this was an interesting character who needed further development, nothing else happened to him and he quickly got back into his hammock and hid until further stories.

 _ **Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum.**_

 _ **I make a rich woman beg.**_

 _ **I make a good woman steal.**_

 _ **I make an old woman blush.**_

 _ **I make a young woman squeal.**_

 _ **I want to be yours pretty baby.**_

 _ **Yours and yours alone.**_

 _ **I'm here to tell ya honey.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **That I'm bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Waww-waww.**_

Boom, the ship bucked, trying to dance to the music.

In 10-Forward, the music had found its way to a natural setting—a bar. Guinan heard the music and thought it oddly familiar. The heavy, raspy voice. The booming of a guitar and drum. The wailing of a sax.

She could almost put her tongue on it. Then she had it, or rather, it had her and the next thing she was doing was dancing on a table. "Stop the ship!" she cried. Loudly! "I want to get off! I'm not bad to my bones anymore! I've reformed! Aaaaiiiieee!"

She slipped.

Boom, the ship bucked trying to dance to the music.

"Bridge! Can you move us out of this vibration field?! I don't know how much longer the warp engine containment field can take the stress!"

"Worf!" shouted Counselor Commander Troi. "How much longer does this song last?!"

"Unknown. Commander!" he his head spinning round and round while he tried reading the label on the disc.

 **-o0o-**

Borg #1, or LESTER5 to those he was linked up with, watched the Enterprise intently. The ship rocked again and again. What are they doing over there? LESTER5 thought, his thoughts going out on the web. Over time the Borg had learned that all thoughts were important, but not all thoughts were on the same track and therefore thought police were sometimes needed. It was a rare event in a lifetime when thought police were used on a cube.

Since meeting the humans, however, thought police had had to step up their patrols.

 _We must be wary of the humans, LESTER5,_ came the collected thoughts of the Borg. _They have succeeded in destroying several cubes before where other more advanced races have not. We must assimilate them to learn how they accomplished this. Yeah, and get the nudie mag from the human Commander Bundy. All right! Who thought that?! Come on! Speak up! You know I'll... we'll find you sooner or later!_

 _Stick it,_ came a feeble reply.

Sensing frustration not of his own making, LESTER5 did what no other Borg had done for millennia —he turned off his local TIU (Telepathy Implant Unit) and switched himself over to voice mode only, automatically kicking in his TIU Not In Use indicator light which flashed not only on his body for other Borg to see, but also flashed brightly on the Thought Web.

LESTER5 noted a new second officer came to his side—JORG31895. JORG stood there and looked at LESTER5. Finally, LESTER5 signed and said, "JORG31895, I am on voice only mode at this time."

JORG31895 began talking in a hollow way. "I am here to help you, LESTER5," he said in a hollow tone.

"Did you know that my voice sounds hollow and tinny? Do we have records of how to change voice settings? Ah. There they are. My archive has not been opened in centuries. Did you know that the humans have also encountered this problem? They resolved it many different ways."

"JORG31895. If you wish to remain a functioning unit, be silent," instructed LESTER5 as he watched the Enterprise buck and roll.

"Okay, boss-man," JORG31895 answered in a deep, bass voice, sounding for all the world like he was a 4-pack a day chain-smoker.

LESTER5 sighed. Humans again. Then, "JORG31895, scan the human when he arrives for weapons. He may come over with a bomb. If so, dematerialize it into space in random particles. He must not be harmed before he is assimilated."

"Okay, boss-man," JORG31895 replied in a falsetto voice, annoying his commander again.

 **-o0o-**

 _ **Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum.**_

 _ **Now when I walk the streets.**_

 _ **Kings and queens step aside.**_

 _ **Every woman I meet. (ha ha)**_

 _ **They all stay satisfied.**_

 _ **I want to tell ya pretty baby.**_

 _ **Well I see I make my own.**_

 _ **And I'm here to tell ya honey.**_

 _ **That I'm bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh.**_

 _ **Bu-bu-bu-bu-baaaaad.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Bad to the bone.**_

 _ **Bah-da-dah-da-da-dahh. Dum dum dum.**_

 _ **Wawwwwawww-wawww.**_

The bridge was quiet. The ship had stopped bucking and rolling. The fires had been put out, the gray hairs had been expertly dyed, and Guinan slogged back a fifth of straight Vulcan Sludge-Horror, which gave her the shakes she could concentrate on instead of the shakes she couldn't get out of her mind from when she had been a go-go dancer.

Al emerged from his seclusion, several new stains on his uniform and numerous wrappers strewn about in Picard's personal quarters. Worf saw an imposing man. Ensign Parker saw a confident man. Counselor Troi saw a winning attitude. Ensign Binard saw two hours of work ahead of him cleaning up the old man's digs from Commander Al. Thanks a lot, buddy! It'd almost be worth it to go Borg native and get out of cleaning up the mess but knowing what he knew of the Borg they'd probably assign him the task of cleaning it up and he'd comply mindlessly. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Commander Al strode for the lift and ignored the two Starfleet officers necking in the back of the lift as he headed for Transporter Room 3. Chief O'Brien was waiting behind the console as he strode in, a cleaning rag over one shoulder.

"One to beam to Borg cube. Energize, Chief," instructed Al.

"Yes, sir," the Chief replied immediately, scoring direct hits on the buttons he needed to get Al over to the Borg ship.

Al materialized on the cube near LESTER5 and JORG31895. Both Borg had neutral expressions and a little light flashing on their shoulders. "I am LESTER5."

"Name's Al Bundy. Commander Al Bundy," he said again trying to hitch up his britches.

"It will do you no good to battle the Borg, Commander Bundy. We are stronger and smarter than you humans. We have superior armaments and defenses. Tell him some of our capabilities, JORG31895."

"Thufferin' Thuccotash, bosth," JORG31895spit while he talked. "We've got puuuuleeeenty uh strooooong laserssssssss. We've got puuuuleeeenty..."

"I'll take your word for it that you have a superior weaponry if you can keep your second in command from spitting on my uniform."

LESTER5, looking uncharacteristically mortified of JORG's speech trial, waved JORG31895 to desist and move off. He regained his composure and superior than thou attitude and said, "You humans should be intelligent enough to know when to surrender and just accept the fact you will be assimilated. I understand your wish to try and stave off the assimilation three times before finally realizing the necessity to capitulate to the better team, but let us cut to the chase, dude, and quit being a bummer."

Commander Al looked at LESTER5, unable to make out what he had just said. "Where in the world did you get your psychobabble from?"

"This is knowledge we have assimilated from you humans over the last severed meetings between humans and Borg. Are you ready to surrender now?"

Al walked towards him, arched his chin several centimeters up so his nostrils were flaring directly into the Borg's face and said, "Let's rock," in a quiet, almost menacing way. His upper lip pulled back revealing a green tinted gleam on his overbite, his eyes narrowed to slits. His hands on his waist as if he'd already won and this was merely a formality.

LESTER5 saw the lone human use his tongue to search his teeth for a lump of brown mush, which it found without too much difficulty.

-o0o-

The Enterprise crew anxiously waited for word. Most bets had it that there would be a loud "Aaaiieee!" from Commander Al screaming in pain and agony, like when you get your finger stuck in a car door when it closes. Yeouch. That smarts.

"Weapons are ready, Commander," Lt. Worf said.

"I know, Mr. Worf. You said that two minutes ago," replied a very tired Counselor Commander.

"Just letting you know the status, Commander. After all, Commander Al is just a lone man. What can he do against the Borg with no weapons?"

"I'm sensing something!" Commander Troi informed the bridge. "Something bad. It's coming from the Borg ship. I can sense terror. Unrelenting terror. And something to do with gas masks."

"Is it Commander Al?" Worf asked. "I bet it is. I told him not to go. He should have listened. This wouldn't have happened had I been in charge. I wonder if I have any music for this."

Said Ensign Parker, "C'mon, Worf. Al beat you fair and square at thumb-war."

"Quiet, both of you! It's not Commander Al. It's... it's... it's latent Borg minds awakening in terror. Commander Al is doing something. Something horrible. Something definitely non-Starfleet approved I'm sure. I can feel his satisfaction, but I don't know what it is."

"Look!" shouted Ensign Parker who had thought to keep the viewer on the Borg cube ship.

The ship began to fray around the edges, smaller cube ships ejecting into space. The cube did not repair itself after each cube departed, but continued to fragment from the outside in.

"Find Commander Bundy," instructed Commander Troi.

"Found him," Lt. Worf replied almost instantly. "He's practically the last living thing left on the ship. Chief? Beam Commander Bundy back to the bridge of the Enterprise. All stations stand by."

Commander Al materialized on the bridge, saw a smiling Counselor Troi, and quickly turned to see the viewer to check on the progress of the Borg ship falling to pieces.

Breeep-breeep! Breeep-breeep! "Commander. The Borg are hailing us," said Lt. Worf, regretting that one summer during high school he had spent working as a receptionist and now being saddled with that duty time and again.

"On screen," replied Commander Al.

LESTER5 showed up on screen in his own personal cube. Commander Al could tell it was a private cube as the number of wayward tubes running every which way was not apparent and instead the ship had a smooth surface as if designed for maximum efficiency instead of looking like a pipe warehouse.

LESTER5 said, "We'll be back, and the human race will be assimilated if it's the last thing we do." However, as he was wearing a gas mask similar to those worn in WWI, his words were hard to understand, and it came out as: "Beeyll be kack abd da koomn rockwell be simulcasted if ips da cast bing wudo."

Commander Al asked, "What do you mean, 'Beeyll be kack abd da koomn rockwell be simulcasted if ips da cast bing wudo?' Hey, um, Pakistash, is the universal translator working correctly? It is? LESTER5, I'm sorry. Can you repeat that? What you said again? What's a kack?"

"Back! Back!"

"Ooooo-kay. Be back. Got it. But who is Beeyll? If you introduced him to me, I certainly don't recall. Is he, or in the spirit of political correctness, she, an important babe... er... person?"

" **We'll! NotBeey11! We'll hack!"**

"Ooooo-kay. I'm sorry, but no. We're not going to be back this way for some time. But do have your people call my people and we'll set up a lunch somewhere."

Frustrated, LESTER5 severed communications and zipped off to rendezvous with the other Borg and reattach their Borg ship and assimilate someone else. That'll teach those uppity humans.

"It seems like I have some catching up to do," said Captain Picard as he gently walked onto the bridge past two necking officers still at it in the turbo lift. On his forehead was a large bandage.

"Captain!" said a smiling Commander Counselor. "How are you feeling?"

"I've felt better. But I'm glad nonetheless that I won't be assimilated. It appears our ingenious first officer here is the reason we are still wearing Starfleet uniforms instead of basic black, eh, Mr. Bundy?"

"Just doing my job the best I could, Captain," Commander Al said.

Captain Picard sat in the Captain's chair and asked, "Just how did you accomplish this, Commander? The Borg are not an easy opponent and you have not encountered them in your universe, I imagine?"

"American know-how, Captain. If we Americans can build a good-quality off-road truck like a Dodge, then we can defeat the Borg."

"I'm French, actually."

"Oh." _That would explain it, then_ , Al thought to himself. Al sat in the Second officer's chair, leaned back and relaxed after a job well done.

Picard noticed Al's posture and asked. "Do you always sit like that?"

Al pulled his hand free and said, "Sorry. Old habit."

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

 _Personal Log. Day... oh, who gives a flying * &^ ###! anymore. The Enterprise will never find me. I've been on punishment detail for the last 24 hours. This wouldn't have happened had I not been so damn good looking. It's a curse being good looking in this universe. I've considered __sheving shiving_ _shaving, and tried getting' the clippers to work, but they seem to break whenever I turn them on. But when Jefferson uses them, they start working again._

 _Damn clippers._

 _I tried sending a coded SOS message to passing ships, askng if anybody's got a open berth, but somehow Peggy and Capt. Marcy Darcy (hahaha—that name still gets me) managed ta break the code and put the brakes on that idea, I tell you._

 _I tried ejectin' in an escape pod. I loaded it with tons a junk I'd need like Al's personal collection of nudie mags, some unstained clothes, and plenty of food. I got in, hit the ejection button and waited for bliss. It didn't work. The damn thing jammed. I got out and the second I was clear of the dang thing, kaboosssshhhhh! It spun off inta space._

 _All this and Al's food is even starting to appeal to me._

 _I'm doomed._

 _The only good spot on my itinerary is watching the ship's dog, Woofy, even though he chews the toes off my space socks on a regular schedule._

 _Woofy was a semi-intelligent clump of fur and fangs from an uncharted world the Bundy's had never visited. Makes ya wonder how he got aboard, don't it? It did me too until I found the shuttle bay logs and pieced together what had happened. The critter came aboard on its own in a shuttle that the Bundy's found floating in space and apparently looked so cute to Peg that she decided to adopt it as a pet. Woofy seemingly never thought to leave even though most everybody else would love to shove it out an airlock for constantly piddling in and on clothes, pooping everywhere, and basically chewing up shoes and socks._

Commander Riker noticed Woofy wander by with Lt. Kelly's boot in its mouth, drop the boot so it stood straight up and then, almost mischievously, piddled in it. Woofy left the boot for Kelly to find. Riker thought, Good boy. Or thing. Whatever you are.

 **-o0o-**

Commander Riker walked onto the bridge, shuffling his feet like a condemned man. His shirt was dirty and not tucked in, his pants were dirty, and he wasn't even bothering to wear his boots and instead wore some socks he had found that had a hole where the big toe went.

"Hi, Will," Peggy said, sauntering up to him and snuggling his arm. "Are you feeling better today?"

"What is it, Peg? Do I have to do your laundry again? Why don't you just kill me now and have done with it. Why are you torturing me like this?"

She put her hands on her hips and addressed him as if he were a child. "Well, William, you tricked us into seeing a fake Elvis. That's why. You know that we respect the great Saint Elvis more than anything else in life."

"No, I don't, Peg. I'm not from this universe, remember."

"Oh, that's right. Ha-hah-hah." She shrugged her upper body. "Oh well. What's done is done. Now today I want to you rub my feet."

"Oh. God. Kill me now!" Will wailed in anguish, lifting his head to an uncaring God.

Peg continued on as if not hearing it, which was exactly what she did since it was useful to have selective hearing when it came to ignoring remarks, suggestions or even orders from higher officers when it was time to watch a soap opera.

"Then tonight, Will, I want you to actually come into my quarters and rub my tushie."

"Peggy!" Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) snapped. "Why should he come to your quarters to do that? What about my quarters and my tushie? He tricked both of us, remember?" A vein pulsed on her forehead.

Riker rushed to the lift like a man possessed of leaving the bridge with some semblance of his kahunas intact. "Excuse me, ladies," he said apologetically. "But if I'm to rub your feet today I'll have to get some rubbing oil to caress your feet for a soft comfort."

"Ooooohh," they warmed to the idea of a decent foot rub as the lift doors opened and Will jumped inside and frantically pushed buttons.

Several floors below, Bud walked down a corridor whistling a tune. Not a worry on his mind. His hands were in his pockets, his cap on backwards as usual. and he sauntered down the corridor more than walked with a specific destination in mind.

Then he noticed a red and black blur coming his way.

As he watched, Commander Riker stormed down the corridor. His face was red with exertion. He rushed past Bud as the young Bundy wisely got out of the middle of the corridor to watch Riker go running past. Bud shrugged his shoulders, muttering, "Man, I hope he gets to the can in time."

Bud resumed his saunter, thinking this time maybe he would go and juice up the ship's computer and see about allocating some more memory to storing his solitaire games after someone else had tampered with it and all his scores had been lost.

Bud managed to take two steps before a hand yanked his collar from behind. Riker's red face was soon all Bud could see as he hauled the young Bundy up against the bulkhead.

"Get me back to my ship!" Riker ordered through the clenched teeth of someone who had had enough foot rubs and laundry detail to last a lifetime.

"Why should I? If you go, then the curse field hits me."

Riker loosened his grip and put Bud gently back on the floor. Then a smile appeared on his face.

"If you do, I'll give you my little black space-babe book. I managed to get quite a few names and numbers before those mothers arrived to take the bikini babes back to their bus." Riker held a little black book under Bud's nose, taunting him.

Bud looked down and noticed the little black book was nearly 4 inches thick.

Bud licked his lips in anticipation, but seemed to want to remain curse free more than have a great little black book.

Riker shook the book a little to taunt him some more.

Bud noticed a pair of souvenir bikini briefs fall out from between pages 112-113. Licking his lips again, he asked "Can I see a little more of the book?"

Riker flipped open a page where the bikini came from. "Hi, Will!" said a voice seductively. "This is Sherri. That's Sherri with an 'I' - giggle. I hope you remember to see me next time you're around Risa. Here's my space phone number and a little something to remember me by." Riker closed the book and cut the hologram picture before Bud could see any more of how he got the bikini.

"Sigh. Okay, you've got me. I'll get you back to your ship in exchange for your book. But not before you promise me two more things. First, you have to send Al back—after all, the curse needs a recipient."

"You know, I've been meaning to ask you about that. Isn't there any way to just cancel this curse? I mean, you have the knowledge to detect it, so why not the knowledge to defeat it?"

"Actually… my ancestors defeated it once before, and I'm currently working on a cure."

What Commander Riker did not know was that several centuries ago, back when the industrial age was in full swing, the Bundy's had been on the rebound from an age-old curse from a previous ancestor who had managed to piss off as yet another witch. These Industrial Age Bundy's were going to be the first to break the spell and reap the benefits: that of becoming middle class and possibly their children reach the brass ring of upper middle class! Two cars in the garage and enough money to go around to afford full service treatment at the gasoline pumps. Then the unimaginable, yet unavoidable happened. Their child managed to piss off the curse field to go into full swing and it was all downhill for that family from there. That child grew up and managed to start his own family and by then the curse field had no intention of letting the Bundy's get away from its influences again. Until now. Bud had managed to isolate the curse field from his existence and the field would diminish in power and strength and die with Al, unless something happened to Al so suddenly, that the field got confused and latched on the next male Bundy, namely Bud. Or as luck would have it, Riker. The field was confused before, but now it was again latched on the Dodge-2610X.

If Bud had talked about the curse several days earlier, Riker would not have understood anything about it, or even cared to learn anything about it. These days Riker understood that curse too well. He also understood Bud's personal code—Live, party hard, annoy Kelly, keep pests out of engineering (namely, Kelly), and take no prisoners for tomorrow was another day where Al just might kick the bucket accidentally and not of old age and the curse land on your head, causing me nothing but misery for the rest of my life.

"I don't envy you your problems, Bud," Riker said after hearing the above.

"Hey, Will," Jefferson said walking up in a leisurely fashion. "Marcy and Peg are fighting on the bridge again to see who gets their feet rubbed first and have sent me to find you."

"Al back! Got it! Can you do it?!" Riker asked as panic took over his voice and autonomic functions.

"What is it that you want done?" Bud asked.

"I'm pretty sure that if I beam back down to Klendi4 and beam back up during a solar storm I'll beam up to the Enterprise. Heh, heh. It has to happen that way," he gibbered, spittle dripping from his mouth. "It happened to another Starfleet officer before. It can happen to me now. I'm sure of it. Otherwise, the alternative is tushie and feet rubbing for all eternity." He shivered.

Bud shivered.

Jefferson shivered. "Let's help Will get home, Bud. I'm tired of being the second best looking person onboard. And if anyone is going to be the reason for a catfight, even if it is just Marcy and Peggy, it's going to be me."

"Okay," Bud agreed. "I'll do it, but there's one other thing you have to do for me."

"Wiiiilllll? What's keeping you?" Peggy blared over the ship's intercom.

"Put some muster it in, missy!" snapped Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) over the intercom.

"Anything you want," Riker agreed blindly.

 **-o0o-**

Riker walked like a man with a mission. His uniform had acquired new stains following Peggy's and Marcy's foot rubs and it didn't help that he ate a burrito from Al's personal stock. Chomp, chomp, chomp, gulp. These were starting to acquire a good taste, he thought.

"Jefferson, have you seen Will lately?" came Lt. Peggy's voice from up ahead.

Yikes! She was looking for Riker!

And suddenly the burrito he was eating lost whatever appeal it once had. In that regards, so did eating.

He glanced at his watch and noticed that time was quickly running out. He needed to finish his assignment first so that Bud would send him home or the deal was off. He didn't have time to do some moronic thing for Peggy, punishment time or no punishment time. If he had to rub her feet one more time, he was going to pass out. The fumes from her stinky big toe was enough to peel paint from the walls of their cabin. He still hadn't returned there because of the lingering odor.

Riker walked by a fritzzing and sparking control panel, noticed it controlled environmental settings on the below decks, considered fixing it, thought it over while swaying his head to the left, then to the right, shrugged and walked off. He had other business to attend to first.

He quickly arrived at Lt. Kelly's cabin and beeped the door chime. "Who is it?" she asked.

"It's Commander Riker. I've been sent here to help."


	7. Chapter 7: It's Time To Go

Riker's Story: Mirror Page 1

 **Riker's Story: Mirror Cracked!**

By Steve2

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own the Star Trek series or Married with Children series. This is simply a story for fun. No profits are being made. Enjoy the humor.

 **Chapter 7: It's Time To Go. Get Me Outta Here!**

"A surprise party?! You shouldn't have! Hah-hah-hah!" Commander Al chortled in glee for the first time as someone had managed to replicate a keg of beer. With foam even. Looks like someone remembered a little something or other about splitting the beer atom.

Gathered around Al were numerous people drawn to the day's hero festivities as an alternate to going to work and having to produce something. It was much easier to get a drink, eat some finger food, and show up late with a reasonable excuse like you were meeting Commander Boondy, er, Bindy, er, Bandy… _whatever_.

As the drinks flowed and the finger food poked, Guinan linked up with Captain Picard who was watching the festivities from the corner of the room as that was the best place to see someone trying to stick a shiv up your back. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, he remembered.

"So what do you think of this Commander Al Bundy?" she asked, looking at his antics of dancing to some piped in music, a beer in his hand.

"I'd say that it is a good thing he is wearing a one-piece uniform and cannot take off his shirt and subject us to a sight I'd rather keep unseen and away from my thoughts," he replied seriously.

"There's something about him that I cannot put my finger on. He's not as powerful as Q. He's not even stronger than Ensign Parker over there. But there's something about him..." she trailed off.

While initially upset that the ship didn't have a nudie bar, being in this universe had affected Al and he did his best to enjoy himself and the party at hand. He got 10 kegs of beer flowing, the cheap finger food flowing, and a Vulcan doc getting sloshed on kool-aid sludge. But what surprised him was when Geordi wheeled in a gift. It was a very large white box with a red bow.

"For me?" Al asked all smiles.

"You deserve it, Commander," Geordi replied, one hand around the waist of a pretty Ensign who only last story had been infatuated with Commander Riker with Geordi coming up his usual second place.

Commander Bundy pulled the wrapper and the box fell off in pieces revealing a black leather recliner with the stick on the side to get the foot rest up.

Ooooohh. Heaven.

"Oh, man," sniffed Al. "This is fantastic. Thank you from the bottom of my heart." Sniff. Al sat down in it easily, a satisfied smile on his face. Aahh.

He put the foot rest up. Double Aahh.

He kicked his shoes off. Triple Aahh.

"Now I can put my finger on his power," Guinan gagged as she raced for the main door.

Captain Picard was one step behind and encountered Mr. Worf at the door also in full retreat. "Mr. Worf, I want answers on how to return Commander Bundy back to his reality and I want it ASAP. Got it?!"

"I'll get right on it, sir," he replied, moving to assist a gagging Geordi who had escaped with his date.

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _ **HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME! HELPME!**_

 _Was tired. Fell asleep in kitchen area. Wok up to si Peggi smiling at me. Lipstick on her two fronte teethe. Wanted feet rubed. No choice. *# &$) *#&%$&^ ! No choice Must git go home soon. Bad people here. Very bad. End report._

 **-o0o-**

Commander Riker went looking for Bud. He walked by the same fritzzing and sparking control panel from the last chapter, noticed the controlled environmental settings on the lower decks had changed for the worse, considered fixing it, thought it over while swaying his head to the left, then to the right, shrugged, and walked off. He still had other business to attend to first.

Unfortunately, that business included him making his mandatory stop on the bridge for new assignments before tracking Bud down.

The turbolift doors opened, and Riker walked out on the bridge. Lt. Peggy looked up from her station where she had been coloring the display lights with her lipstick out of boredom, and also so that all the lights would look symmetrical and match her outfit. "Oh, goody, you're here," she smarmed. "Ha-ha-ha. For today's punishment, I want you to rub my shoulders. Unless you want to do something else?" Wink, wink.

Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) got to her feet, a scowl on her lips. "Now just you listen here, missy! You try rubbing her shoulders on my shift, and I'll send you to the brig! It's time to rub my tushie! Chop-chop!" She aimed her tushie at Riker.

"Oh God. Kill me dead!" he wailed.

"It is your punishment time, mister," Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha) said. "Now come here and rub my tushie. Then you can do Peggy's shoulders before cleaning my bathroom." She wiggled her tushie at him.

" _ **OH GOD! Whaa-aaa-aaa-aaaa!"**_

Commander Riker did something he had never done before women. He retreated to a stronger position, namely anywhere off the bridge. He hauled ass as soon as the lift doors opened and sprinted in record time for Engineering.

 **-o0o-**

Bud, hunched over his ancient Atari system while wearing his cool red and green glasses, looked up and said, "We've just entered the orbit of Risa. Mom and Marcy didn't suspect a thing—I rigged it so that their outputs read that we were on our way to the spacemall all this time. The same solar storm is in progress that was going on when you beamed up. Did you finish my special little project?"

"Hmm?" Riker replied, distracted and looking over his shoulder as if to see a vengeful captain and a Lt. with waxy red ruby lips storming down on him to drag him back to foot rubbing Hell! "Oh, yes. That. Yes, it's done. She didn't realize a thing. I gave her a local sleeper while doing it. She'll be up in a few minutes anyway, so the sooner you get me out of here the better, okay?"

"Sure, sure. What's the rush?" Bud asked as they walked towards the transporter room. The vacuum was still there, and Riker punched it before getting on the other pad, stunning the mad beast.

Suddenly, a voice blared over the intercom. "Wiiillllll? It's time for my 4pm bon-bon feeding! Punishment time!"

Riker shivered in a cold fear.

Bud shivered in a cold fear for the man.

Jefferson, already at the controls, shivered in sympathy.

In the background of the intercom, they heard, "Peggy! I'm not getting enough Riker punishment time of my own. I need more time for him to do more chores since that lazy Jefferson won't do it and I want you to let me have some of Riker's time."

"Listen, Marcy, I have him booked enough as is. Tell you what, though. He gets way too much sleep during his five hours off every night, so why don't you put him to work during that time."

Riker flipped Bud the little black book and said, "Energize, energize, energize, _**energize**_!"

Bud diddled with the controls, putting them back to their settings effortlessly despite Jefferson screwing them in his vain attempt to help and restore his status as the number 1 hunk on the ship.

Riker beamed out.

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

And beamed back to the Enterprise.

He looked around the transporter room for signs of a mad vacuum, found none, and then noticed it was clean.

He then noticed Mr. O'Brien at the controls who viewed him with a shocked expression, his mouth forming an

Commander Riker stepped off the transporter pad, his left shoe squeaking every other step, and headed for a lift.

As he stepped onto the bridge, the first thing that Captain Picard noticed was that his first officer's hair looked mussed, his beard had grown out without being trimmed back, he looked like he could use 30 days of sleep, and his uniform, while red and black, was not quite up to Starfleet standards. For one thing, command insignia were not drawn on collars with a black marker.

"Ah, Number One. It is good to have you back onboard," Picard said, rising out of the captain's chair, extending his hand.

"It's good to be back, sir," Riker responded, shaking the hand. He then looked about for any sort of attack by a red head with an affinity for bon-bons and tushie rubs. Finding none, he warily made his way to his customary chair. With a sigh of pure satisfaction, he planted his posterior into the space age fake-leather chair, enjoying the smell of a well-polished vinyl seat.

Counselor Troi sat on Picard's left. Her eyes were open with disbelief. Commander Riker actually looked good in denim jeans.

"Well, Commander. I, er, ah, can't wait to see your report." Picard smiled for lack of anything else to say. Then he pulled his tunic down because, let's face it, space-polyester is just not that comfortable of a material. Regardless of how resistant it is to space radiation.

"I'll get right on it, sir. But I can tell you this. It feels great to be back where I belong."

"Well, anyway, welcome back," Capt. Picard said.

Commander Riker, at peace for the first time in a week, and knowing he did not have to look forward to rubbing feet later, relaxed. He settled into the chair, letting it comfort and pull him in as he stuck his right hand down his pants near the zipper. He smiled and sighed.

Captain Picard noticed his behavior and turned to his counselor for an explanation.

She looked past Capt. Picard at Will for a second. Then, to Picard, "It'll take him a little time to readjust to our way of living."

 **A CRACKED MIRROR REALITY AWAY**

Al beamed aboard the Dodge 2610X.

"Welcome back, dad," said Bud. He was wearing his red and green cool glasses again.

Lt. Jefferson said, "Welcome back, Al. You old mangy ugly looking dog. Whooo-ooo! I'm back to being number one again!" he jumped for joy as he left the transporter room.

"Bud!" screeched Lt. Peg. "Where's Riker and what is he... oh, hi, Al."

"Bud," hissed Captain Marcy Darcy (hahaha). "Where's Riker? And what's Al doing back here?"

"Yes, Bud," hissed Lt. Peg. "Can we get him back and send you-know-who off again?" she nodded to you-know-who.

Al looked confused, his eyebrows almost becoming one thick shag of hair on his forehead.

"Sorry, mom. The solar storms are ending."

"Oh." To Al, "Hah-hah. Al! Welcome back, baby. It's good to see you again."

"Ah well, shoot me dead before I have to listen to any more of this," he said matter-of-factly.

The curse was back to its intended, Bud thought as his scanners picked up the field's presence on Al's body.

Al quickly found an area on his uniform and stuffed his hand down his pants. Peg rushed to a side panel and ordered a spicy burrito for Al.

He shrugged when presented the hot, steaming mess, and then began eating it.

Mid-bite, she asked, "Bud, what are the chances of you beaming me down to the surface and then my beaming up onboard the Enterprise?"

"Not good, mom. The system needs two bodies, one from each side, to work."

Al interrupted any more questions. "Peg, you told me that the food dispensers were broken last week when I asked for a burrito. So how did they get fixed all of a sudden? Did the magical food-dispenser fairy come by and fix them?"

Peg looked uncomfortable and guilty. Her foot twisted and her hips bounced as she fidgeted, saying, "Well…"

"Daddy?" came a shaky question from outside the door.

Al looked away from Peg and said, "Come in, pumpkin."

Lt. Kelly Bundy entered shakily. She wore her traditional miniskirt and tube-top Starfleet uniform. Her outfit would have normally stopped men in their tracks, but this time instead of a blond head of hair complimenting the fashion statement, a green spiked hairdo with purple highlights insisted that she was going to have a tough time getting rid of that perm, thanks to a certain Commander Riker, and if she ever got her hands on him…

Bud chuckled, while looking through his black book, his thoughts going back to the holograms at hand.

-o0o-

In two different realities, two different ships continued their voyages through the black sea of space.

The End

 **Author's note:**

I never wrote any further Star Trek fanfics. The next exciting adventure was supposed to be: DATA's STORY: TELEVISION ADDICTS! I had thought to create a stand-alone fanfic for all the command staff (Data, Geordi, Worf, Troi, and Crusher), but never finished it for a variety of reasons, the most notable being I had a life to live, a marriage to make work, and beginning a career testing software.

At this point there are no plans to continue this storyline. Should anyone wish to continue it, feel free. I don't mind at all. I simply ask you send me a PM with a link of where the new story is so I can read your work.


End file.
